Suchergebnisse

I provide a measure of household uncertainty available for European Union (EU) countries. The measure draws from the same consumer survey data used to construct widely-used consumer sentiment indices. I find that increases in household uncertainty are followed by declines in consumer sentiment and household financial conditions. Using Euro Area-wide indices, I also find that the effects of increases in household uncertainty differ from increases in uncertainty from other sources such as financial markets and economic policy. Notably, household uncertainty shocks are inflationary. These results challenge the notion that (household) uncertainty shocks act like negative demand shocks.

Do closer political ties with a global superpower improve sovereign borrowing conditions? We use data on voting at the United Nations General Assembly along with foreign aid flows to construct an index of political ties and find evidence that suggests closer political ties leads to both better sovereign credit ratings and lower yields on sovereign bonds. We use heads-of-state official visits and coalition forces troop contributions as exogenous instruments to further strengthen the findings.