Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments July 28, 2016 erstellt
Description:
We ask whether uncertainty about interest rates is important for economic activity. Causal effects of uncertainty on the economy are examined through the lens of a small VAR where the assumption that uncertainty and real activity cannot contemporaneously react to each other is indeed in line with the data. Our measure of uncertainty stems from professional forecasts of short- and long-term interest rates and accounts for both disagreement among forecasters and the perceived variability of future aggregate shocks. Studying a panel of countries we find that subjective interest rate uncertainty has large, negative and persistent effects on the economy