Uncertainty is close to my heart. As witnessed by my Residua, I love the concept (see, e.g., “On the Residual Nature of Uncertainty,” October 1, 1980; “On Uncertainty, Probability, and the Socratic Method,” July 24, 1982; “The Prospect of Growing Uncertainty,” May 18, 2001; and “Uncertainty Plain and Simple,” December 11, 2017). And I love the very word, too. Thus it just crossed my mind to look up its synonyms in the English language on the World Wide Web. To my joy, there are quite a few of them, and each of them gives me loads of pleasure: ambiguity, anxiety, concern, confusion, distrust, skepticism, suspicion, unreliability, trouble, fickleness, cloudiness, uneasiness, unpredictability, wariness, perplexity, precariousness, bewilderment, vicissitude, circumspection, suspense, disquiet, doubtfulness, guesswork, incoherence, guardedness, hesitation, inconclusiveness, indecision, irresolution, mystification, puzzlement, quandary… What with the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting global economic crisis, uncertainty is the word that fits this historical moment pretty well. Actually, perfectly. Right now, it is the mother of all words, no less.

Addendum I (April 22, 2020)

As I discovered by surfing the World Wide Web this morning, Hites Ahir from the International Monetary Fund, Nicholas Bloom from Stanford University, and Davide Furceri also from the International Monetary Fund, have recently come up with a new quarterly measure of uncertainty, which they call the World Uncertainty Index (WUI).[1] It covers a hundred and forty-three countries with more than two-million inhabitants, and it goes back sixty years. The index is constructed by examining country reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). It is based on the number of times the word “uncertainty” is mentioned in these reports, which includes some of the word’s synonyms. Not surprisingly, I am quite attracted by the WUI that captures uncertainty related to economic and political affairs, albeit with one reservation of note. Now that the EIU is aware of its rôle in the measurement of uncertainty, it can play with WUI as it pleases. Adding the key word here or subtracting it there can be construed as an editorial decision, after all. This reservation does not apply to the information collected to date, though. As Ahir, Bloom, and Furceri show in the chart they provide, the WUI has been edging upwards the last two decades, and it has reached its highest value ever in the last quarter of 2019, mainly due to Brexit and tensions between America and China.[2] Obviously enough, the WUI would jump even higher in the first quarter of 2020, or the pandemic quarter for short, but Ahir, Bloom, and Furceri do not mention it. At any rate, we are on the same page, to be sure. At this juncture, uncertainty is the word all around the world, and it is worth studying by a wide range of disciplines.

Addendum II (May 2, 2020)

As soon as I penned the first addendum to this piece and posted it on my Residua website, I googled for the Finance & Development magazine. And I learned that a certain Gita Bhatt was the editor-in-chief. The electronic-mail address of the magazine was also available, and so I decided to send her a few kind words. Feeling quite enthusiastic, I was full of praise. Here is my letter in full:

I came across the paper by Ahir, Bloom, and Furceri in Finance & Development only a day after I wrote a short text on uncertainty and posted it on my blog. As you will see from today’s addendum to the original piece, I am quite delighted by the WUI of their making:

https://www.residua.org/book-xlv-2020/the-mother-of-all-words/

However, I am writing to you because I believe that the WUI needs careful rethinking if it is to be useful in the future. In particular, Ahir and his co-authors should consider a broader base for the index. The Economist Intelligence Unit is now holding the key to the WUI, as it were, and that is unsustainable.

Perhaps they could use the same approach by widening the base to at least a dozen leading sources of some longevity—say, newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. I would appreciate it if you would forward this message to them. I wish them the best of luck in these uncertain times.

I closed the letter with kind regards and a postscriptum about my credentials. I mentioned that I taught economics focusing on construction at both MIT and University of Reading for many years. For her information, I added that my short bio could be found on my blog site. To my disappointment, though, I have not yet heard from Bhatt, Ahir, Bloom, or Furceri. And it has been ten full days already. Clearly enough, none of them shares my enthusiasm at all. Three cheers for uncertainty!

Addendum III (March 11, 2022)

Uncertainty is reaching new heights after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Having cut off Russia from world affairs, the so-called west is coping with an unprecedented shortage of oil and gas. At the moment, the European Union is barely coping with the growing energy crisis across the subcontinent. Even more important, World War III is on everyone’s lips. And nuclear weapons of every description are on the ready by now both in Russia and elsewhere around the globe. Uncertainty is the word, to be sure, and there is no way out of it in the foreseeable future. If anything, it will only grow and grow and grow.

Returning to the World Uncertainty Index, it can be found all over the World Wide Web already. But there is not a single website that shows that WUI is currently at its highest value ever. To wit, the promising index is lost in space already. The paper by Ahir, Bloom, and Furceri remains just a paper. Although it is mentioned by many, it has not led to all the required methodological improvements, let alone to the recognition of WUI by any appropriate establishment capable of maintaining it indefinitely. Chances are that this is how things will stay, as well. In short, the situation we face is discouraging.

For my sins, I am no less than delighted by the global tumult. Uncertainty will remain close to my heart till my last breath. If there is any worry on my mind, it has to do with the completion of my Residua. At this stage of my life, I expect to keep going with my writing project for another decade or so. Even though it is a question whether I will be alive and well for so many years, the uncertainty is now at such a high point that I cannot but wonder about the future of the World Wide Web, not to mention everything else needed for mere survival. Unperturbed, I keep working on my magnum opus. And I keep maintaining it in the best of shapes as though there is no tomorrow. Uncertainty, schmuncertainty.

Footnotes

1. “60 Years of Uncertainty,” Finance & Development, March 2020, pp. 58-60.

2. Op. cit., p. 60.