Essays on economic uncertainty and confidence: measurement, dynamics, and political influence

• Ano de defesa: 2025
• Autor(a) principal: Rosa, Maurício Benedeti [UNESP]
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
• Palavras-chave em Português: Incerteza (Economia); Confiança; Economia política; Economic uncertainty; Confidence; Economic sentiment; Political economy
• Link de acesso: https://hdl.handle.net/11449/313862

This dissertation investigates the role of uncertainty and confidence in macroeconomic dynamics, focusing on the Brazilian economy in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. It is structured into three complementary essays aimed at deepening the understanding of the interaction between these variables and the potential effects of the political environment. The first essay conducts a bibliometric analysis of the literature on economic uncertainty in the post-crisis period, identifying key research themes, the most influential publications, and methodological trends, while highlighting the relevance of the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index as a benchmark for the empirical measurement of the topic. The second essay examines the relationship between uncertainty and confidence in the Brazilian economy by applying principal component analysis and linear and nonlinear Granger causality tests to assess whether uncertainty shocks – measured by various indicators – explain variations in consumer and business confidence levels across different sectors. The results reveal the existence of nonlinear patterns in these relationships and contribute to the identification of the uncertainty indices that are most suitable for forecasting confidence indicators. The third essay explores the role of the political context in the interaction between uncertainty and confidence, with an emphasis on the impact of the party holding the presidency. It further adopts the concept of irrational exuberance to determine the portion of confidence not explained by economic fundamentals and uses NARDL models to assess possible asymmetries in the response of confidence to uncertainty shocks under different administrations. The findings show that during Workers’ Party (PT) governments, positive uncertainty shocks tend to lead to sharper short-term declines in confidence, whereas in the long term, the effects of uncertainty on confidence are mitigated in both increasing and decreasing uncertainty scenarios. Taken together, the three essays provide an integrated view of how economic uncertainty relates to confidence and how this relationship may be shaped by the political environment, offering evidence that could inform public policies aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of uncertainty and strengthening confidence during periods of economic turbulence.