In the new issue of Public Sector Economics on assessing uncertainty and its effects on the public sector, selected articles analyse several aspects of uncertainty relevant to the analysis of employment, macroprudential policy, foreign direct investment, and public budget management. 

As guest editors, Petar Sorić and Mirjana Čižmešija open this issue with an introductory note.

Marija Hruška and Mirjana Čižmešija, in the article Traditional or social media: which capture employment better?, employ two measures of media uncertainty, one reflecting the uncertainty perceived by journalists and the other characterizing the uncertainty associated with Twitter users. Using measures from Baker, Bloom and Davis (2016) and Baker et al. (2021) authors investigate which one has better explanatory power for employment in the US.

Tihana Škrinjarić in the article Macroprudential policy stance assessment: the case of Croatia provides a framework for assessing the effectiveness of macroprudential policy in Croatia. Apart from giving a meticulous review of related studies, this paper acts as a methodological guide for constructing a macroprudential policy index by assessing different empirical challenges of building such an indicator in great detail.

Marijana Andrijić in the article Uncertainty, populism and foreign direct investment: the state of play in economic research provides a view of uncertainty and its wider socio-economic consequences. After a thorough theoretical examination of economic uncertainty and its empirical metrics, she discusses the complex interplays among populism, foreign direct investment, and uncertainty.

Enkeleda Lulaj focuses on the aspects of public budget management amidst uncertainty in the article Thriving amidst uncertainty: a financial blueprint for the public budget. Lulaj econometrically examines survey responses from selected municipalities in Kosovo, finding that several budget-related constructs are very important for efficient macroeconomic management.

Gent Sejko and Altin Tanku in the article Central bank balance sheet and inflation in a euroised small open economy: a cointegrated SVAR analysis investigate the impact of changes in the liquidity composition of the Bank of Albania’s balance sheet on domestic prices, and whether a shift toward permanent rather than temporary base money increases could be used as a monetary policy tool, notably when policy rates are close to zero.