Once again, is economic policy uncertainty (EPU) as measured by the Baker, Bloom and Davis news index, elevated during the Trump era?

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Figure 1: Cumulative sum of mass shooting casualties, beginning 2016M11; deaths inflicted by non-Muslims (dark red), wounded inflicted by non-Muslims (pink), deaths inflicted by Muslims (dark blue), wounded inflicted by Muslims (light blue). Source: Mother Jones. Tabulations of religion of perpetrator by author.

Longer perspective displayed in this post.

Despite reader Ed Hanson‘s comment:

[T]he current Monthly EPU is at an elevated level, but it has been at this elevated level 7 out of the past 9 years. The elevated value is better described as normal for about the last decade.

And his concluding admonishment:

Perspective, Menzie

I still believe that economic policy uncertainty as measured by the news based index (which Ed Hanson was discussing) is elevated.

Figure 1: Monthly Economic Policy Uncertainty, news based (blue), baseline (red), as reported. Source: http://www.policyuncertainty.com.

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A sequel to my rebuttal to an anti-log manifesto:
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From PredictIt:

From Goldman Sachs, “How Easy Is It to Win a Trade War?” (Stehn/Hatzius) today:

Thanks, Trump!

Source: ino.

That’s HTS code 84799041, on the Section 301 hit list released today. Mr. Trump has the thanks of a grateful Nation for stopping intellectual property theft in this important category.

The entire list is here.

There’s a 30 60 day consultation period. Since around $50 billion of goods is targeted, China will likely impose proportional measures if and when retaliation occurs.

Because the value added of Chinese exports to the United States is fairly low (i.e., exports incorporate lots of foreign components), it is unclear how much damage would be inflicted on bystanders. Wells Fargo uses data on trade in value added to show Taiwan’s exposure.

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Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. This is an extended version of a column that appeared at Project Syndicate on March 19.

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