Economic uncertainty is a closely watched metric by economists. Scholars like Alexopoulos & Cohen and Baker, Bloom & Davis have constructed simple narrative indicators of economic uncertainty by looking for the keywords "economy/economic" and "uncertain/uncertainty" appearing together in news coverage as an indicator of press attention to an uncertain economic climate.
The timeline below tracks the Economic Uncertainty (EU) score computed over CNN, MSNBC and Fox News from 2009 to present, showing a marked rise in Economic Uncertainty beginning in late 2021 and stabilizing at an elevated level since mid-2022.
Looking at business news channels from 2014 to present, there is a sharp rise from late 2015 to late 2020, declining through a low point last year, but since around July 2021 increased through this past April and have been relatively stable or declining since.
