defined by variability in government capacity to pursue expected policies, adversely affect private investment growth. Furthermore, focusing on a specific policy, Van Wijnbergen (1992) also submitted that trade policy uncertainty distorts private investment growth and saving decisions which ultimately reduces economic efficiency and growth. Finally, Chen and Funke (2003), who modeled private investment decisions in the face of policy uncertainty among emerging markets, also concluded that rational investors tend to withhold investment until they are convinced about the prospects of future policies.
Following these conclusions, this study projects that investors will shelve investment projects with significant capital outlay if prevailing policies are perceived to be short lived, temporary or unsupportive; or if investors believe policy makers are unable or unwilling to implement expected or desired policies. To this end, this study also predicts significant negative relationship between budget deficits induced policy uncertainty and US investment growth.
2.2 Policy Uncertainty and Unemployment Rate
The relationship between policy uncertainty and unemployment rate in this study is considered to be derived; in mat, the level of unemployment rate is projected to reflect how key macroeconomic indicators such as investments react to policy uncertainty. This study is of the view that since employment growth tend to lag growth in productivity, investments, GDP etc. effects of policy uncertainty on unemployment rate will be channeled through how such performance indicators respond to or perform in an uncertain environment. Consequently, this study projects that if policy uncertainty is verified to impact investment and GDP growth negatively, then the trend will ultimately exert significant negative impact on prevailing unemployment rate all things being equal. In other words, if policy uncertainty depresses investments and GDP growth, (due to conditions such as perceived heightened business risk, investment irreversibility, doubts about permanence of specific policies etc.), then employment opportunities which could have been generated as a result of such investments will also fail to materialize. In such condition, policy uncertainty would be perceived as a remote causal agent responsible for relatively high unemployment rate through its initial impact on investments and GDP growth.
2.3 Policy Uncertainty and GDP growth, Interest Rates and Consumer Sentiments
Effects of policy uncertainty on GDP growth has also been shown to revolve around the extent to which the condition impacts key components of GDP growth. For instance, if it is verified that Policy uncertainty has constraining effects on investment growth and consumption expenditure (as shown in previous discussions), then, policy uncertainty could further be shown to have depressing effects on GDP growth all things being equal. This projection stems from the fact that investment growth and consumption expenditures are key components of GDP growth according to basic GDP growth framework; (GDP = C + 1 + G + NX). These two components accounts for about 12% and about 70% of GDP growth respectively according to US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Apart from this channeled impact, available literature further provides evidence in support of negative relationship between policy uncertainty and economic growth. Abdiweli M. Ali (2001) for instance, showed that policy uncertainty correlates negatively with economic growth. Negative effect of uncertainty on economic growth was also documented by Aizenman and Marion (1993) and Todd (1996) respectively. Robert Lensink, Hong Bo and Elmer Sterken (1999) further found robust