The cost of not knowing: how uncertainty weighs on the euro area economy

Economic uncertainty – the extent to which households, firms, investors and policymakers find it difficult to assess the economic outlook – has increased markedly in recent years with successive geopolitical and trade policy shocks. This article reviews recent developments in various proxies for uncertainty and shows that metrics capturing geopolitical and trade policy uncertainty have remained persistently elevated. The adverse impact of uncertainty shocks on business investment is typically larger and more persistent than the effect on private consumption. These results hold for different ty