Economic Uncertainty and Divisive Politics: Evidence from the 'dos Españas'

This article exploits two newspaper archives to track economic policy uncertainty in Spain 1905-1945, a period of extreme political polarization. We find that the outbreak civil war 1936 was anticipated by striking upward level shift both newspapers. study dynamics behind this and provide evidence strong empirical link between increasing rise divisive issues at time: socio-economic conflict, regional separatism, power military, role church. holds even when we exploit variation content level.