Analysis of current economic conditions and policy
EPU Today: 655
A big jump:
Figure 1: EPU (blue), 7 day centered moving average (red). Dashed orange line at election. Source: policyuncertainty.com via FRED.
Yesterday’s move puts the EPU at 3.5 standard deviations above the mean 10/1/2024-2/23/2025.
7 thoughts on “EPU Today: 655”
Kh13542@yahoo.com
Off topic, but maybe not for long:
About a month ago, Serbia’s Prime Minister, Milos Vucevic, resigned after just a year in office. He was forced out by daily anti-corruption protests. Vucevic is an ally of Russia:
This looks rather like what happened in Ukraine prior to Russia’s re-invasion 3 years ago, but with an important difference. In Ukraine, the ousting of a Russian puppet led to a change in government. The ruling Serbian Progressive Party seems likely to win elections, which by law should take place soon. That would suit Russia, but not Serbia’s protesters. New elections may not end the protests.
So there is more than one fly in Russia’s plans for regional dominance. Maybe Putin should rethink his preference for corrupt allies.
Macroduck
This headline seems too recent to account for the EPU index rise in the figure, but maybe there was something on tariffs on Mexico and Canada earlier:
“How about we impose tariffs on OUR imports of Chinese goods? Then you don’t impose tariffs on us?”
Good luck.
baffling
index rise is probably most likely attributed to the threat of firing the entire federal work force for failing to respond to vague emails and unofficial twitter threats from king musk. who really stands for conservative family values with his latest spat with newly revealed baby mama. dude seems to be deranged, which appears to make him even more appealing to the modern republican conservative.
New port fees on Chinese ships. This amounts to a tariff on anything shipped on a Chinese vessel, no matter the country of origin.
So many inflationary, disruptive, unproductive policies to choose from.
Moses Herzog
Big Daddy Musk loves his ketamine.
AS
Using a VAR for quarterly data, it looks like economic uncertainly, FRED series, dlog(usepuindxd) Granger causes changes in Vanguard’s total return for dlog(VFINX), at the 0.052 level. I used quarterly data from 1985 to 2025. I tried daily and monthly data, but quarterly data seems the clearest. At the monthly level, it looks like Granger causation goes both ways.
Suggested Citation:
Baker, Scott R., Bloom, Nick and Davis, Stephen J., Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for United States [USEPUINDXD], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USEPUINDXD, February 24, 2025.
Macroduck
This makes good sense.
Granger + theory of causation = looks like you’re onto something.
Off topic, but maybe not for long:
About a month ago, Serbia’s Prime Minister, Milos Vucevic, resigned after just a year in office. He was forced out by daily anti-corruption protests. Vucevic is an ally of Russia:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1m5x1j3p2yo.amp
This looks rather like what happened in Ukraine prior to Russia’s re-invasion 3 years ago, but with an important difference. In Ukraine, the ousting of a Russian puppet led to a change in government. The ruling Serbian Progressive Party seems likely to win elections, which by law should take place soon. That would suit Russia, but not Serbia’s protesters. New elections may not end the protests.
So there is more than one fly in Russia’s plans for regional dominance. Maybe Putin should rethink his preference for corrupt allies.
This headline seems too recent to account for the EPU index rise in the figure, but maybe there was something on tariffs on Mexico and Canada earlier:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/02/24/trump-says-tariffs-on-canada-and-mexico-will-go-forward.html
The month-long delay is up in a week, and the rapist-in-chief says he’ll go ahead with tariffs then.
Mexico, meanwhile, has an idea for avoiding tariffs:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-24/mexico-studies-tariffs-on-china-in-bid-to-strike-deal-with-trump
“How about we impose tariffs on OUR imports of Chinese goods? Then you don’t impose tariffs on us?”
Good luck.
index rise is probably most likely attributed to the threat of firing the entire federal work force for failing to respond to vague emails and unofficial twitter threats from king musk. who really stands for conservative family values with his latest spat with newly revealed baby mama. dude seems to be deranged, which appears to make him even more appealing to the modern republican conservative.
There’s also this:
https://archive.is/LPKVw
New port fees on Chinese ships. This amounts to a tariff on anything shipped on a Chinese vessel, no matter the country of origin.
So many inflationary, disruptive, unproductive policies to choose from.
Big Daddy Musk loves his ketamine.
Using a VAR for quarterly data, it looks like economic uncertainly, FRED series, dlog(usepuindxd) Granger causes changes in Vanguard’s total return for dlog(VFINX), at the 0.052 level. I used quarterly data from 1985 to 2025. I tried daily and monthly data, but quarterly data seems the clearest. At the monthly level, it looks like Granger causation goes both ways.
Suggested Citation:
Baker, Scott R., Bloom, Nick and Davis, Stephen J., Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for United States [USEPUINDXD], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USEPUINDXD, February 24, 2025.
This makes good sense.
Granger + theory of causation = looks like you’re onto something.