Sources of economic policy uncertainty in the euro area: a ready-to-use database

Series: Occasional Papers. 2315.

Author: Andrés Azqueta-Gavaldón, Marina Diakonova, Corinna Ghirelli and Javier J. Pérez.

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Sources of economic policy uncertainty in the euro area: a ready-to-use database (820 KB)

Summary

In this paper, we build a publicly-available database of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indicators based on the methodology proposed by Azqueta-Gavaldón, Hirschbühl, Onorante and Saiz (2023), which uses topic modelling techniques to identify distinct components of EPU. This database is regularly updated and can be accessed on the Banco de España’s website. Currently, the dataset covers the four largest countries in the euro area, namely Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. Our data coverage is continually expanding to include more euro area countries. Additionally, we compute the aggregated EPU indexes for the euro area. This comprehensive dataset and the resulting euro area indexes provide valuable tools for researchers, policymakers and analysts to assess and monitor the dynamics of economic policy uncertainty in real time.