GPR, AI-GPR, EPU, the World Uncertainty Index, BlackRock's BGRI, ICRG, ACLED and the GPR Data Hub: what each measures, where its data comes from, and when to use it.
Researchers studying geopolitical risk can choose from several indices that sound alike but measure different things. Some count newspaper articles, some score text with a language model, some are expert ratings and some count conflict events. This page sets them side by side so you can pick the right one, and cite it correctly.
| Index | What it measures | Source | Coverage | Frequency | Starts | Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPR (Caldara & Iacoviello) | Share of articles on adverse geopolitical events, with threats and acts | 10 English-language newspapers (US, UK, Canada) | Global; 44 countries | Daily and monthly | 1985 (historical: 1900) | Free |
| AI-GPR (Iacoviello & Tong) | An LLM (GPT-4o-mini) scores each article 0–1 for geopolitical-risk intensity | New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune | Global, plus country, event and bilateral series | Daily and monthly | 1960 | Free |
| EPU (Baker, Bloom & Davis) | Newspaper coverage of economic policy uncertainty | Newspapers in each country | US, more than 40 other countries and a global index | Monthly (US also daily) | 1985 for the US | Free |
| WUI (Ahir, Bloom & Furceri) | Frequency of the word “uncertainty” in country reports | Economist Intelligence Unit country reports | 143 countries | Quarterly | 1950s | Free |
| BGRI (BlackRock) | Market attention to 10 named geopolitical risks | Brokerage reports and financial news | 10 risk themes, not countries | Regular dashboard | – | Dashboard free; data not downloadable |
| ICRG (PRS Group) | Expert ratings: 12 political, 5 economic, 5 financial components | Analyst assessments | About 140 countries | Monthly (researcher datasets annual) | 1984 | Paid licence |
| ACLED | Counts of political violence and protest events | Researchers coding reports | Global | Weekly | Varies by region | Registration; terms vary by user |
| GPR Data Hub (this site) | Share of news coverage reporting conflict or threat, threats vs acts | GDELT: Arabic-language outlets, global event record, local South American outlets | MENA; 54 African, 40 European, 12 South American countries | Daily | 1979 (Africa, Europe); 2015 (MENA, S. America) | Free, CC BY 4.0 |
Facts as published by each provider, checked October 2026. Coverage and access terms change; confirm on the provider's site before relying on them.
These count the share of news coverage about a risk. They are transparent, high-frequency and reproducible. Their weakness is the vantage point: an index built from US and UK papers sees other regions through Western newsrooms. That is the gap the GPR Data Hub's regional indices fill, by reading each region's own press.
The AI-GPR has a large language model read each article and score its geopolitical-risk intensity, which captures context better than keywords. For Arabic-language news, the MENA index found its transparent theme screen and an LLM reading correlate above 0.95 daily, so either route gives very similar series.
The WUI reads analyst country reports rather than newspapers, which gives broad country coverage at quarterly frequency. The BGRI reads brokerage research to measure how much markets are paying attention to named risks; it is built for investors rather than for country-level research.
ICRG ratings are analysts' judgments of political, economic and financial risk, long used in cross-country regressions but licensed. ACLED counts events on the ground (battles, attacks, protests). Event counts tell you what happened; news-based indices tell you how intensely risk is perceived and reported. Many studies use both.
The GPR index measures news coverage of wars, terrorism and tensions between states. The Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index measures news coverage of uncertainty about economic policy, such as taxes, regulation or monetary policy. They are built the same way (newspaper text) but capture different risks.
ICRG ratings are proprietary and licensed. Free, news-based alternatives include the GPR index (global, plus 44 countries), the AI-GPR (global, plus about 200 country series), the World Uncertainty Index (143 countries, quarterly) and the GPR Data Hub's daily indices for MENA, 54 African, 40 European and 12 South American countries. They measure different things from ICRG's expert ratings, so check the definitions.
The World Uncertainty Index (WUI), by Ahir, Bloom and Furceri, counts how often the word 'uncertainty' appears in Economist Intelligence Unit country reports, scaled by report length. It covers 143 countries quarterly from the 1950s.
The BlackRock Geopolitical Risk Indicator (BGRI) tracks market attention to ten geopolitical risks, using a language model to read brokerage reports and financial news. It compares current attention with a five-year history, where zero is the historical average.
The African GPR Index on the GPR Data Hub gives a daily, separate series for each of Africa's 54 countries from 1979 to 2026, free under CC BY 4.0.