Latin American Country-Specific Indexes

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We are pleased to host a new set of 18 Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) indices for Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Republic), developed by a team of researchers at the Banco de España and at the Executive Secretariat of the Central American Monetary Council (SECMCA): Erik Andres-Escayola, Marina Diakonova, Corinna Ghirelli, Luis Molina, Javier J. Pérez, Juan Quiñonez and Elena Vidal.

The main reference describing the construction of the index is: "Using Newspapers for Textual Indicators: Guidance Based on Spanish- and Portuguese-Speaking Countries". Banco de España's website provides further details. The methodology closely follows the procedure described in the paper "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty" by Scott R. Baker, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis (QJE, 2016).

The different EPU indicators for the whole Latin American region are documented in several papers. The six largest Latin American economies (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru) are described in "Using Newspapers for Textual Indicators: Guidance Based on Spanish- and Portuguese-Speaking Countries" (Computational Economics, 2024). The methodology for other South American countries (Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela) is presented in "How Economic Policy Uncertainty Spreads Across Borders: the Case of Latin America" (Banco de España, 2025). The EPU indicators for Central American economies (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Republic) are constructed in collaboration with the Central American Monetary Council (SECMCA) and are presented in "Economic Policy Uncertainty in Central America and the Dominican Republic" (Latin American Journal of Central Banking, 2025).

The indices are constructed by searching digital news archives (via the Dow Jones Factiva database) for articles about each country that include keywords related to "uncertainty," "economy," and "policy." Articles unrelated to policy topics-such as sports or entertainment-are excluded using Factiva's indexing. Keywords are defined in Spanish, Portuguese, and English to accurately capture the concept of economic policy uncertainty:

• Uncertainty: uncertain, uncertainty/uncertainties, unstable, instability/instabilities, risk(s)
• Economy: economic(s), economy
• Policy: (keywords related to institutions and policy measures, including each country's central bank name; the seat of government or parliament; terms like government, treasury, budget(s), deficit(s), public spending, debt (public or sovereign), fiscal policy/policies, monetary policy/policies, tax(es), reform(s), law(s), regulation(s), etc.)

The indices are based on the following sets of newspaper sources, by country:

• Argentina: Clarín, La Nación, Infobae
• Brazil: O Globo, Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, Correio Braziliense, Estado de Minas, Agência Brasil
• Chile: El Mercurio, La Tercera, El Diario Financiero, Pulso
• Colombia: El Espectador, El Nuevo Siglo, Portafolio
• Mexico: Reforma, El Universal, La Jornada, El Financiero, El Economista, Agencia Mexicana de Noticias
• Peru: El Comercio, La República, Gestión, Agencia Peruana de Noticias Andina
• Bolivia: Opinión, La Razón, Los Tiempos
• Ecuador: El Comercio, El Diario, Metro
• Paraguay: ABC Paraguay, Agencia Paraguaya de Noticias, Última Hora
• Uruguay: El País Uruguay, La República
• Venezuela: El Universal, Tal Cual, Últimas Noticias
• Costa Rica: La Nación, El Financiero, El Jornal, Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)
• El Salvador: La Prensa Gráfica, Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)
• Guatemala: Prensa Libre.com, Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)
• Honduras: Criterio, La Tribuna, Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)
• Nicaragua: La Prensa, Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)
• Panama: ANPanamá, Critica Online, Critica, Decisiones Panama, El Siglo, La Estrella, Panamá América, La Prensa, La Verdad Panamá, Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)
• Dominican Republic: Supranational Press (Reuters America Latina, Reuters España, CE Noticias Financieras)

For the following countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela), three versions of the EPU index are available, based on different groups of news sources:

• Local Press EPU - constructed from that country's leading local newspapers (in Spanish, or Portuguese for Brazil).
• Foreign Press EPU - constructed from major foreign newspapers, both Anglophone (U.S. and UK/Canada: Anglo-Saxon Press: Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Telegraph (UK), The Times (UK), Chicago Tribune, The Guardian (UK), The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist) and Spanish-language (Spain: El País, El Mundo, Expansión, ABC, Cinco Días, El Economista, La Vanguardia), that cover news about the country.
• All Press EPU - an index based on all the above sources combined, weighting each source equally regardless of location.

Local press-based indices are available from November 2002, while those using foreign and combined sources begin in January 1997, reflecting broader international archive coverage.

To construct the monthly EPU indices, they follow the following procedure. First, they compute the share of articles containing keywords related to "uncertainty," "economy," and "policy" in each newspaper and month (for local newspapers, the denominator is the total articles published that month in that newspaper; for foreign newspapers, it is the total number of articles about the target country published by that newspaper in that month). Second, they standardize each newspaper's monthly series to have unit standard deviation. Third, they average the standardized series across newspapers for each country. Finally, they rescale the resulting index to have a mean of 100 over the sample period.