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Discussion Paper
The Fourth SNB-FRB-BIS High-Level Conference on Global Risk, Uncertainty, and Volatility: Risk and Uncertainty in a Post-Pandemic World; Implications for the Economy, Financial Markets, and Monetary Policy
Over the past five years, the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, concerns about trade policies and their implications for the global trading network, military conflicts, and broader geopolitical tensions have sharply heightened risk and uncertainty. U.S. and global Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) reached unprecedented levels in April 2025, mostly driven by uncertainty about trade policies (Figure 1).
Discussion Paper
The Global Transmission of Inflation Uncertainty
The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented disruptions to global supply chains, labor markets, and economic activity, leading to significant volatility in inflation rates worldwide. Not only the level of inflation but the uncertainty about the future path of inflation increased considerably since the onset of the pandemic and have remained elevated until very recently, posing challenges for policymakers and businesses alike. Figure 1 shows a measure of inflation uncertainty proposed in a recent paper by Londono, Ma and Wilson (2024) (LMW hereafter). The intuition behind this measure is that ...
Working Paper
The Global Transmission of Real Economic Uncertainty
Using a sample of 30 countries representing about 65% of the global GDP, we find that real economic uncertainty (REU) has negative long-lasting domestic economic effects and transmits across countries. The international spillover effects of REU are (i) additional to those of domestic REUs, (ii) statistically significant, and (iii) economically meaningful. Trade ties play a key role in explaining why uncertainty generated in one country can affect economic outcomes in other countries. Based on this evidence, we construct a novel index for global REU as the trade-weighted average of all ...
Discussion Paper
Global Real Economic Uncertainty and COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented disruptions in supply, demand, and productivity, which have had cataclysmic health, social, and economic implications across the globe. In this note, we explore the large increase in global real economic uncertainty observed during the pandemic as a channel that explains or magnifies the economic implications of COVID-19