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The World Uncertainty Index (WUI) captures uncertainty related to economic and political developments in 143 countries.

The latest update of the WUI shows a surge in global uncertainty due to the war in Ukraine. The elevated uncertainty in the first quarter of 2022 could pull back the full-year global growth by 0.35%.

Despite the recent jump, the current reading is still half the level at the onset of the pandemic. This could mean that another spike may be just around the corner, as the world is already witnessing supply chain issues, rising food prices and elevated crude oil (energy) prices.

The WUI is computed by counting the percent of the word “uncertain” (or its variant) in the Economist Intelligence Unit country reports. The WUI is then rescaled by multiplying by 1,000,000. A higher number means higher uncertainty and vice versa. For example, an index of 200 corresponds to the word uncertainty accounting for 0.02 % of all words, which—given the EIU reports are on average about 10,000 words long—means about 2 words per report.


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