The Bloom-Davis index of Economic Policy Uncertainty hit 162 in September, up from 102 in August and the highest level seen since December 2012. With all this uncertainty, we can be certain that the events surrounding the government shutdown are having an impact.
This notion of increased uncertainty is captured nicely in our most recent poll of small businesses in the Southeast (past results available here), which went live on September 30, the day before the government shutdown. Although the survey is still out in the field, some early results show:
- Most firms are expressing more uncertainty (see the chart),
- For a significant portion of firms, uncertainty today is having a greater impact than six months ago, and
- The government is heavily featured as a source of the uncertainty.
Of course, what we really care about is whether higher uncertainty is affecting economic activity. When asked, 45 percent of our respondents indicate that uncertainty is in fact having a greater impact on their business than six months ago, up from 37 percent in the first-quarter 2013 survey (relative to fall 2012). Further, fewer firms so far have indicated that uncertainty is having less of an impact. In the current survey, 9 percent of firms have reported less of an effect, compared with 16 percent at the close of last April's survey.
And what are the sources of uncertainty, as seen by our panel of businesses? Eighty-percent of participants have responded to our open-ended question about the primary source(s) of uncertainty. The following "word cloud" summarizes their views:
We will get more responses to the survey over the next week or so, and these may show a different picture. But we're pretty certain of one thing—the duration of the current fiscal impasse in Washington will make a difference.
By John Robertson, vice president and senior economist, and
Ellyn Terry, economic policy analysis specialist, both in the research department of the Atlanta Fed