Geopolitical Risk — Acts

## What this measures

This index tracks the share of newspaper articles reporting actual adverse geopolitical events, wars, military actions, terrorist acts, in ten major newspapers. It is the acts component of the Geopolitical Risk index, scaled so 100 equals the 1985–2019 average.

## Background

Monthly acts sub-index.

The Geopolitical Risk index counts articles about adverse geopolitical events and threats (war, military buildups, nuclear threats, terrorism) as a share of all articles in ten major newspapers, via automated text search. 100 is the 1985–2019 average. Threats and acts are separate sub-indexes; the eight categories are each category's share of all articles, in percent; the country indexes count articles that mention both geopolitical risk and that country.

Source: Caldara, Dario and Matteo Iacoviello (2022), "Measuring Geopolitical Risk," American Economic Review 112(4), 1194–1225. Data: matteoiacoviello.com/gpr.htm, CC BY 4.0. Synced daily by /api/cron/gpr-sync.

## Why it matters

Organizations face direct disruption when geopolitical events occur: supply chains reroute, commodity prices jump, credit conditions tighten, and customer behavior shifts. A rising acts index signals that adverse events are materializing, not merely threatened, which typically requires immediate operational response rather than contingency planning. Monitoring the acts sub-index separately from threats helps distinguish between realized shocks and speculation.

## How to read it

Values above 100 indicate that the share of articles reporting geopolitical events is above the historical average; values below 100 indicate below-average coverage. A rising index means more adverse events are occurring or receiving greater press attention; a falling index means fewer events or less coverage.

## What it does not say

The index reflects newspaper coverage, not the severity, geographic spread, or economic impact of events. It does not forecast future geopolitical disruptions or indicate which countries or regions are affected.

## Source

Caldara and Iacoviello (Federal Reserve Board staff) publish the index, derived from automated text search of ten newspapers. Palanor downloads the data files under a CC BY 4.0 license.