IMF Working Papers

Measuring Global and Country-Specific Uncertainty

By Ezgi O. Ozturk, Xuguang Simon Sheng

October 30, 2017

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Ezgi O. Ozturk, and Xuguang Simon Sheng. Measuring Global and Country-Specific Uncertainty, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2017) accessed November 8, 2024

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Summary

Motivated by the literature on the capital asset pricing model, we decompose the uncertainty of a typical forecaster into common and idiosyncratic uncertainty. Using individual survey data from the Consensus Forecasts over the period of 1989-2014, we develop monthly measures of macroeconomic uncertainty covering 45 countries and construct a measure of global uncertainty as the weighted average of country-specific uncertainties. Our measure captures perceived uncertainty of market participants and derives from two components that are shown to exhibit strikingly different behavior. Common uncertainty shocks produce the large and persistent negative response in real economic activity, whereas the contributions of idiosyncratic uncertainty shocks are negligible.

Subject: Consumption, Financial services, Industrial production, Labor, Long term interest rates, National accounts, Production, Short term interest rates, Unemployment rate

Keywords: Capital Asset Pricing Model, Common Uncertainty, Consensus Forecasts, Consumption, Economic policy, Global, Global Uncertainty, Idiosyncratic Uncertainty, Industrial production, Interest rate, Long term interest rates, Recession episode, Return volatility, Short term interest rates, Standard deviation, Survey Forecast, Uncertainty measure, Uncertainty shock, Unemployment rate, VSU estimate, WP

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    41

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

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  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2017/219

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2017219

  • ISBN:

    9781484316597

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941