While causes and consequences of uncertainty in the US economy have attracted viable interest, the literature still lacks a consensus on several aspects. To name two matters of debate, it remains unclear whether uncertainty shocks are a source or the result of recessions and whether uncertainty shocks have adverse (or even stimulating) effects on the economy. We find that ambiguous results in these regards can be traced back to the selection of an appropriate identification strategy in structural vector autoregressive models. We find that both macroeconomic and financial uncertainty are exogenous to business cycle fluctuations and cause economic slowdowns.

中文翻译：

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我们对不确定性在经济中的作用有多确定？


尽管美国经济不确定性的原因和后果引起了人们的兴趣，但文献在几个方面仍缺乏共识。仅举两个争论点，目前尚不清楚不确定性冲击是经济衰退的根源还是结果，以及不确定性冲击是否对经济产生不利（甚至刺激）影响。我们发现这些方面的模糊结果可以追溯到结构向量自回归模型中适当识别策略的选择。我们发现，宏观经济和金融不确定性都是商业周期波动的外生因素，并导致经济放缓。