GPR — Military buildups (% of articles)

## What this measures

This series measures the share of newspaper articles in the Geopolitical Risk index that discuss military buildups, expressed as a percentage of all articles. It isolates the rearmament dimension of geopolitical risk.

## Background

Share of articles about military buildups — the rearmament read inside the GPR 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

A rising share signals that military expansions and defense preparations are becoming more prominent in the geopolitical landscape. Organizations with international operations, defense exposure, or sensitivity to security spending may see shifts in demand, supply chains, or regulatory attention when rearmament talk intensifies.

## How to read it

The value is a percentage; higher readings mean military buildups account for a larger share of geopolitical coverage. A rise indicates heightened focus on rearmament relative to other geopolitical threats; a fall means buildups are less prominent in the overall risk narrative.

## What it does not say

This series does not measure the absolute volume of coverage, the severity of buildups, or whether conflicts will occur. It reflects journalistic attention, not the scale or location of actual military spending or deployments.

## Source

Caldara and Iacoviello construct the Geopolitical Risk index from automated text searches of ten major newspapers. Palanor downloads the data files from the Federal Reserve Board staff under a CC BY 4.0 license.