Economic Policy Uncertainty and Industrial Linkage in Japan: A Granger Causality in Quantile Test

This article examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and industrial linkage in Japan. Using a VAR-based connectedness approach to measure the monthly industrial linkage across 15 groups of Japanese industries, we examine the Granger causality in quantile between the industrial linkage and Japan's monthly economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and its four components including fiscal policy uncertainty, monetary policy uncertainty, trade policy uncertainty, and exchange rate uncertainty during the period from January 1987 to May 2021. We find that changes in economic policy uncertainty and all four components Granger cause changes in industrial linkage, and this result is robust and consistent across nearly all quantiles. We do not find evidence of the Granger causality running from industrial linkage to economic policy uncertainty. However, considering all quantiles, changes in industrial linkage Granger cause the change in each of the four policy uncertainty.