This study introduces a groundbreaking approach to measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty in the midst of armed conflict, where conventional indices fail. By adjusting for conflict-driven distortions in news reporting, it provides a clearer lens on how wars reshape economic expectations and policymaking.
The result is a global dataset that not only deepens our understanding of uncertainty under extreme conditions but also equips researchers and policymakers with a more reliable tool for analysis.

Europe vs North America Average Economic Policy Uncertainty

Asia vs Africa Average Economic Policy Uncertainty

Argentina Economic Policy Uncertainty

China Economic Policy Uncertainty

Egypt Economic Policy Uncertainty

Ethiopia Economic Policy Uncertainty

Germany Economic Policy Uncertainty

Greece Economic Policy Uncertainty

Israel Economic Policy Uncertainty

Nigeria Economic Policy Uncertainty

Peru Economic Policy Uncertainty

Russia Economic Policy Uncertainty

Thailand Economic Policy Uncertainty

Ukraine Economic Policy Uncertainty

United States Economic Policy Uncertainty

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What's this about?

This website provides direct access to the dataset and methodology developed in Brochet, Mueller, and Rauh (2025). The project measures Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) with a specific focus on how uncertainty evolves during periods of armed conflict.

• Data foundation: Global news-based indicators, following the EPU tradition of Baker, Bloom & Davis (2016).
• Conflict adjustment: Incorporates a correction that accounts for conflict-related reporting biases, ensuring more accurate cross-country comparability.
• Temporal scope: Coverage spans multiple decades, with monthly indices extending into 2025.
• Empirical goal: To disentangle policy-driven uncertainty from conflict-driven volatility.

Key Contributions

• Novel Methodology
  

  Introduces an adjusted EPU index tailored to conflict settings, reducing distortions that arise when violence dominates the news cycle.

• Global Coverage
  

  The dataset spans a wide set of countries, enabling comparative analyses of policy uncertainty across diverse institutional and geopolitical environments.

• Policy & Research Applications
  

  Provides a robust tool for policymakers, economists, and conflict researchers to study how war affects economic decision-making.

• Transparency & Replicability
  

  The data and codebook are openly available, supporting reproducibility and further extensions by the academic community.

Codebook

The dataset (download below) uses the method and corpus described in the article Sophie Brochet, Hannes Mueller, Christopher Rauh (2025) "Uncovering Economic Policy Uncertainty During Conflict". Unpublished Manuscript.

Variable description:

• isocode: 3 letter isocode for the country
• year: year
• EPU_adjusted: EPU index following the adjustment described in the paper Brochet et al (2025)
• EPU: unadjusted index following the method in Baker et al (2016) and Ghirelli et al (2019)
• armedconf: is a dummy variable indicating armed conflict according to the definition of the webpage conflictforecast.org and Mueller et al (2024)

Bibliography:

• Baker, Scott R, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J Davis, “Measuring economic policy uncertainty,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2016, 131 (4), 1593-1636.
• Ghirelli, Corinna, Javier J Pérez, and Alberto Urtasun, “A new economic policy uncertainty index for Spain,” Economics Letters, 2019, 182, 64-67.
• Mueller, Hannes, Christopher Rauh, and Ben Seimon (2024) Introducing a global dataset on conflict forecasts and news topics. Data & Policy, volume 6, https://doi.org/10.1017/dap.2024.10.

See latest data.
Read the article.

Learn More

This project is part of ongoing research to better understand the intersection between conflict dynamics and economic governance.
• For academic collaboration, please contact the authors.
• For policy insights and applied use cases, explore the dataset and replicate the results.
• Together, these resources offer a foundation for advancing both conflict research and economic policy analysis.

For other collaborations or research opportunities get in touch with us. Together, we can leverage data to create meaningful change in crisis-prone economies.