Measuring Subjective Business Uncertainty Using Census Bureau Business Surveys

Cory Breaux and Lucia Foster

CES Technical Notes Series from Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau

Abstract: Recognizing the potential impact of uncertainty on business decisions, the Census Bureau has attempted to measure business uncertainty using data from four of its business surveys. The most detailed of these efforts created a measure of businesses’ subjective uncertainty over future outcomes as the second moment of five-point (quantitative) forecast distributions collected on the Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS). The Census Bureau attempted to replicate the MOPS approach on two more frequent and timely surveys, the Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders (M3) and Quarterly Services Survey (QSS), but these efforts were ultimately redirected to a different business survey. With the introduction of the high-frequency survey, the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), the Census Bureau is again attempting to measure business uncertainty. The BTOS collects qualitative expectations so the MOPS method cannot be used. A research team explored using a dispersion measure but found this measure to be unpersuasive as a proxy for uncertainty. The research team then turned to a direct collection of uncertainty. Following the usual protocols, the BTOS direct collection was subject to cognitive testing. This technical note documents the successes and challenges of these efforts in order to inform future efforts to measure uncertainty using Census Bureau business surveys.

Keywords: BTOS; MOPS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08
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https://www.census.gov/about/adrm/ced/apply-for-access.html?CES-TN-2026-36 First version, 2026 (application/pdf)
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