Abstract:

This paper uses high-dimensional macro datasets to construct China’s macroeconomic uncertainty index, evaluates the asymmetric effect of economic uncertainty on economic growth from business cycle perspective, and demonstrates the important role of financial friction mechanism through counterfactual analysis. This provides an important basis for understanding the asymmetric effect, transmission mechanism, and policy response methods of economic uncertainty shock. This paper draws three main conclusions: Firstly, the impact of economic uncertainty on output is asymmetric in the business cycle. During economic recession, economic uncertainty has a significant and persistent negative impact on the real GDP growth rate, while the impact of uncertainty shock during economic prosperity is not significant; Secondly, the financial friction mechanism strengthens the negative impact of economic uncertainty on output. The increase in economic uncertainty drives up the external financing premium of enterprises, thereby affecting the growth of the real economy to a greater extent. However, the financial friction mechanism is only important during economic recession, and its impact is not significant during economic prosperity; Thirdly, the regulatory effects of fiscal and monetary policy during economic recession are significantly higher than those during economic prosperity. Expansionary fiscal and monetary policy can alleviate financial friction and effectively stabilize economic growth. The research conclusion of this paper indicates that stabilizing the financial situation during economic recession is of great significance in alleviating the negative impact of uncertainty shocks. Active and proactive economic policy regulation can effectively respond to uncertainty shocks and suppress business cycle fluctuations.

Key words:

business cycle, economic uncertainty, financial friction, fiscal policy, monetary policy