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Introduction: Uncertainty plays an important role on economic stability and macroeconomic variables. Economic agents postpone decisions about investment and consumption in periods in which uncertainty is high. This situation affects economic growth negatively. Recently, uncertainty has focused on policy uncertainty. At this point, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) comes to the forefront. EPU is defined as conception that economic agents do not forecast consequences of economic policies adopted by policy makers and future economic policies. In terms of developing countries, statements presented by policy makers in the United States especially may appear as a source of uncertainty in developing economies.

Aim: Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the effects of US EPU on macroeconomic variables for Turkey and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa for periods in which global risk perception is low and high.

Method: The authors used monthly data from January 1998 to December 2018. For this purpose, the authors used Threshold VAR. VIX index takes in consideration as global risk perception. The authors used US EPU index proposed by Baker’s vd. (2016) in order to measure EPU in the United States. Besides, the authors used macroeconomic variables such as industrial production index, inflation and exchange rate.

Findings: As is seen from the results of the analysis, for Turkey’s economy the macroeconomic variables significantly and strongly respond to the changes in the EPU index during the periods in which global risk perception is low; nonetheless, the so-called responses weaken due to the adopted policy of “wait and watch” by investors during the periods in which global risk perception is high.

The concept of Industry 4.0 emerged in Germany in 2011 for the first time causes production processes to be increasingly interconnected and to be more effective owing to its economic and social benefits. The structure of international trade is getting changed due to Industry 4.0. Manufacturing sector is one of the leading sectors in international trade. Manufacturing sector which has remarkable share of exports brings up against significant challenges aiming to competitively design and manage modern products, which are changing and accelerating the complicated multi-domain systems. That producing is more innovatively due to advantages provided by Industry 4.0 impact, positively international trade. The reason is that use of advanced robotic machines and automatization in production process reduces labour costs and thus increases competitiveness of a country in the international markets. The aim of this study is to exhibit a theoretical framework between the digitalization and international trade and to examine how Industry 4.0 impacts international trade in Turkey.

There is a close relationship between labour markets and technology. Technological development enhances labour productivity and creates new jobs in some industries requiring to be different skills while it destroys jobs in ones requiring to be low-skilled. Today, it is experiencing a deep digital transformation. It may be evaluated for Industry 4.0 to cause technological unemployment due to changes in the structure of employment and to bring about new structural problems in labour market. In addition, it is expected for technological progress such as automation and robotic in the production process to negatively influence employment of low-skilled workers. Industry 4.0 has generated a new production model, in which robotic technologies are effectively used in the production process. So-called new technology-based production process has started to change production, working relationship and daily life. Discussions about the effects of the developments in technology on the labour market and unemployment are separated two groups. While there exist optimist views indicating that such development in technology will result in more productivity, pessimists believe that the use of robots, artificial intelligence, smart systems and algorithms in business life will eventually bring problems such as mass unemployment, mass poverty and social disruption. In this study, the authors aim to analyse the potential effects of Industry 4.0 on labour market in Turkey and European countries. From the findings of the study, the authors concluded that Turkey have a higher risk at automation than European countries.