IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v186y2020ics0165176519303842.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic policy uncertainty shocks, economic activity, and exchange rate adjustments

Author

Listed:
  • Nilavongse, Rachatar
  • Rubaszek, Michał,
  • Uddin, Gazi Salah

Abstract

We investigate the impact of foreign and domestic economic policy uncertainty (EPU) shocks on the UK economy. Simulations with a structural VAR model indicate that domestic industrial production declines after a shock to the EPU index in the US. On the contrary, disturbances to domestic uncertainty are an important source of real exchange rate fluctuations. Historical decomposition shows that a surge in domestic EPU after Brexit referendum was the reason behind a massive depreciation of the British pound. These results are robust to different model specifications.

Suggested Citation

  • Nilavongse, Rachatar & Rubaszek, Michał, & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty shocks, economic activity, and exchange rate adjustments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:186:y:2020:i:c:s0165176519303842
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108765
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176519303842
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108765?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susanto Basu & Brent Bundick, 2017. "Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 937-958, May.
    2. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    3. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    4. Colombo, Valentina, 2013. "Economic policy uncertainty in the US: Does it matter for the Euro area?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 39-42.
    5. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    6. Kido, Yosuke, 2016. "On the link between the US economic policy uncertainty and exchange rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 49-52.
    7. Pär Stockhammar & Pär Österholm, 2017. "The Impact of US Uncertainty Shocks on Small Open Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 347-368, April.
    8. Balli, Faruk & Uddin, Gazi Salah & Mudassar, Hasan & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2017. "Cross-country determinants of economic policy uncertainty spillovers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 179-183.
    9. Carlo Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2008. "Should the Euro Area Be Run as a Closed Economy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 138-145, May.
    10. Karnizova, Lilia & Li, Jiaxiong (Chris), 2014. "Economic policy uncertainty, financial markets and probability of US recessions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 261-265.
    11. Leduc, Sylvain & Liu, Zheng, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 20-35.
    12. Pär Stockhammar & Pär Österholm, 2016. "Effects of US policy uncertainty on Swedish GDP growth," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 443-462, March.
    13. Kadiyala, K Rao & Karlsson, Sune, 1997. "Numerical Methods for Estimation and Inference in Bayesian VAR-Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 99-132, March-Apr.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gupta, Rangan & Ma, Jun & Risse, Marian & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Common business cycles and volatilities in US states and MSAs: The role of economic uncertainty," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 317-337.
    2. Rangan Gupta & Chi Keung Marco Lau & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "The impact of US uncertainty on the Euro area in good and bad times: evidence from a quantile structural vector autoregressive model," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 353-368, May.
    3. Pierdzioch Christian & Gupta Rangan, 2020. "Uncertainty and Forecasts of U.S. Recessions," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(4), pages 1-20, September.
    4. Tosapol Apaitan & Pongsak Luangaram & Pym Manopimoke, 2022. "Uncertainty in an emerging market economy: evidence from Thailand," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 933-989, March.
    5. Ansgar Belke & Thomas Osowski, 2019. "International Effects Of Euro Area Versus U.S. Policy Uncertainty: A Favar Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 453-481, January.
    6. Rachatar Nilavongse & Michał Rubaszek & Karsten Staehr & Gazi Salah Uddin, 2021. "Foreign and Domestic Uncertainty Shocks in Four Open Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 933-954, November.
    7. Kundu, Srikanta & Paul, Amartya, 2022. "Effect of economic policy uncertainty on stock market return and volatility under heterogeneous market characteristics," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 597-612.
    8. Balcilar, Mehmet & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin & Ozdemir, Huseyin & Aygun, Gurcan & Wohar, Mark E., 2022. "The macroeconomic impact of economic uncertainty and financial shocks under low and high financial stress," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Tang, Wenjin & Ding, Saijie & Chen, Hao, 2021. "Economic uncertainty and its spillover networks: Evidence from the Asia-Pacific countries," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    10. Arigoni, Filippo & Lenarčič, Črt, 2020. "The impact of trade policy uncertainty shocks on the Euro Area," MPRA Paper 100832, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    12. Himounet, Nicolas, 2022. "Searching the nature of uncertainty: Macroeconomic and financial risks VS geopolitical and pandemic risks," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 1-31.
    13. Rivolta, Giulia & Trecroci, Carmine, 2020. "Measuring the effects of U.S. uncertainty and monetary conditions on EMEs' macroeconomic dynamics," MPRA Paper 99403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Menelaos Karanasos & Stavroula Yfanti, 2019. "Macro-Financial Linkages in the High-Frequency Domain: The Effects of Uncertainty on Realized Volatility," CESifo Working Paper Series 8000, CESifo.
    15. Stavros Degiannakis & George Filis, 2019. "Forecasting European economic policy uncertainty," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(1), pages 94-114, February.
    16. Reif Magnus, 2021. "Macroeconomic uncertainty and forecasting macroeconomic aggregates," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 25(2), pages 1-20, April.
    17. Smales, Lee A., 2020. "Examining the relationship between policy uncertainty and market uncertainty across the G7," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    18. Netšunajev, Aleksei & Glass, Katharina, 2017. "Uncertainty and employment dynamics in the euro area and the US," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 48-62.
    19. Arbatli Saxegaard, Elif C. & Davis, Steven J. & Ito, Arata & Miake, Naoko, 2022. "Policy uncertainty in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Athanasios Triantafyllou & Dimitrios Bakas & Marilou Ioakimidis, 2023. "Commodity price uncertainty as a leading indicator of economic activity," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 4194-4219, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Brexit; Globalization; Policy uncertainty; Real exchange rate; Structural vector autoregressions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:186:y:2020:i:c:s0165176519303842. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.