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Press freedom and jumps in stock prices

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  • Abed Masrorkhah, Sara
  • Lehnert, Thorsten

Abstract

Press freedom varies substantially across countries. In a free environment, any news immediately becomes public knowledge through mediums including various electronic media and published materials. However, in an unfree environment, (economic) agents would have more discretionary powers to disclose good news immediately, while hiding bad news or releasing bad news slowly. We argue that this discretion affects stock prices and that stock markets in countries with a free press should be better processors of economic information. Using an equilibrium asset-pricing model in an economy under jump diffusion, we decompose the moments of the returns of international stock markets into a diffusive risk and a jump risk part. Using stock market data for a balanced panel of 50 countries, our results suggest that in countries with a free press, the better processing of bad news leads to more frequent negative jumps in stock prices. As a result, stock markets in those countries are characterized by higher volatility, driven by higher jump risk and more negative return asymmetry. The results are robust to the inclusion of various controls for governance and other country- or market-specific characteristics. We interpret these as good stock market characteristics because a free press improves welfare and increases economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Abed Masrorkhah, Sara & Lehnert, Thorsten, 2017. "Press freedom and jumps in stock prices," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 151-162.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:41:y:2017:i:1:p:151-162
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2016.05.009
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    2. Tuan Viet Le, 2020. "Freedom of the Press and Equity Returns: Empirical Investigation in Emerging Markets," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 12(3), pages 359-377, September.
    3. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi, 2018. "The gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi : Saudi Arabia's new economy dream at risk ?," Working Papers hal-01965085, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Press freedom; News; Governance; Welfare; Jumps; Stock markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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