Overview and Paper
Dario Caldara, Matteo
Iacoviello, Patrick Molligo, Andrea Prestipino, and Andrea Raffo
construct a monthly index of Trade Policy Uncertainty (TPU Index) by
counting the frequency of joint occurrences of trade policy and
uncertainty terms across major newspapers. The TPU index spikes
initially in the 1970s following the Nixon and Ford “shocks” to U.S.
trade policy. There are additional increases in TPU resulting from trade
tensions with Japan in the 1980s and around the NAFTA negotiations in
the mid-1990s. TPU reaches unprecedented levels beginning after the 2016
U.S. Presidential Election and spikes several times in response to
heightened tensions between the U.S. and its trading partners, notably
China and Mexico.
The paper “The
Economic Effects of Trade Policy Uncertainty” constructs three measures
of TPU based on newspaper coverage, firms’ earnings conference calls,
and aggregate data on tariff rates. The paper documents that increases
in TPU reduce investment and activity using both firm-level and
aggregate data. The paper interprets the empirical results through the
lens of a two-country general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities
and firms’ export participation decisions. In the model as in the data,
news and increased uncertainty about higher future tariffs reduce
investment and activity.
The FEDS Note
“Does Trade Policy Uncertainty Affect Global Economic Activity?” uses
evidence on the joint movements in TPU, industrial production, and other
macroeconomic and financial variables in order to provide an estimate of
the effects of the 2018-2019 spikes in TPU on U.S. GDP, as well as GDP
in advanced foreign economies (AFEs) and emerging market economies
(EMEs).
Description
The TPU index is based
on searches of the archives of seven newspapers: Boston Globe, Chicago
Tribune, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street
Journal, and Washington Post. The measure is calculated by counting the
monthly frequency of articles discussing trade policy uncertainty (as a
share of the total number of news articles) for each newspaper. The
index is then normalized to a value of 100 for a one percent article
share. The TPU Index starts in 1960.
Data
Download our aggregate
TPU data here
[Monthly data last updated November 1, 2025, daily data last updated
November 3, 2025]
Download the firm-level
TPU data (“tpuashare”) used in the JME paper here
Download the
replication codes for the firm-level analysis in the JME paper here
These data can be used
freely with attribution to the authors, the paper, and the website.
Cite as: Caldara,
Dario, Matteo Iacoviello, Patrick Molligo, Andrea Prestipino, and Andrea
Raffo (2020), “The Economic
Effects of Trade Policy Uncertainty,” Journal of Monetary
Economics, 109, pp.38-59.
(When using the data, we
suggest referring to both the website and the date of download;
e.g. “Data downloaded from https://www.matteoiacoviello.com/tpu.htm on Month
DD, YYYY”).
Note: The latest data
are preliminary and subject to revisions since some newspapers are added
to the search database with delay. Additionally, in some cases there
could be minor revisions of the data extending further back when
duplicate or missing articles or newspaper editions are removed from or
added to the database.
Trade Policy
Uncertainty: Charts