This paper provides empirical and theoretical evidence that uncertainty shocks have strong asymmetric effects on economic activity. Specifically, in the empirical analysis I find that uncertainty shocks dampen investment and consumption twice as much during recessions than in "normal" times. In...

In this paper I provide empirical evidence that uncertainty shocks have strong asymmetric effects on economic activity depending on the phase of the business cycle. In particular, the impulse responses estimated with the local projection method on a smooth-transition model show that in...