IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v110y2013i3p520-545.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political uncertainty and risk premia

Author

Listed:
  • Pástor, Ľuboš
  • Veronesi, Pietro

Abstract

We develop a general equilibrium model of government policy choice in which stock prices respond to political news. The model implies that political uncertainty commands a risk premium whose magnitude is larger in weaker economic conditions. Political uncertainty reduces the value of the implicit put protection that the government provides to the market. It also makes stocks more volatile and more correlated, especially when the economy is weak. We find empirical evidence consistent with these predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:110:y:2013:i:3:p:520-545
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.08.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X13002080
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.08.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jinliang Li & Jeffery A. Born, 2006. "Presidential Election Uncertainty And Common Stock Returns In The United States," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 29(4), pages 609-622, December.
    2. George Bittlingmayer, 1998. "Output, Stock Volatility, and Political Uncertainty in a Natural Experiment: Germany, 1880-1940," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(6), pages 2243-2257, December.
    3. Hassett, Kevin A & Metcalf, Gilbert E, 1999. "Investment with Uncertain Tax Policy: Does Random Tax Policy Discourage Investment?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(457), pages 372-393, July.
    4. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides & Valery Polkovnichenko, 2013. "Fiscal Policy and Asset Prices with Incomplete Markets," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 531-566.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    6. Leonid Kogan & Stephen A. Ross & Jiang Wang & Mark M. Westerfield, 2006. "The Price Impact and Survival of Irrational Traders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 195-229, February.
    7. Lubos Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2012. "Uncertainty about Government Policy and Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1219-1264, August.
    8. Belo, Frederico & Gala, Vito D. & Li, Jun, 2013. "Government spending, political cycles, and the cross section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 305-324.
    9. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    10. Francisco J. Gomes & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Luis M. Viceira, 2012. "The Excess Burden of Government Indecision," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 125-164.
    11. Croce, Mariano M. & Nguyen, Thien T. & Schmid, Lukas, 2012. "The market price of fiscal uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(5), pages 401-416.
    12. Callander, Steven, 2011. "Searching for Good Policies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 643-662, November.
    13. Pastor, Lubos & Veronesi, Pietro, 2006. "Was there a Nasdaq bubble in the late 1990s?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 61-100, July.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Francesco Trebbi, 2006. "Who Adjusts and When?The Political Economy of Reforms," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(si), pages 1-1.
    15. Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Policy uncertainty and private investment in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 229-242, October.
    16. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    17. Kevin A. Hassett, 1999. "Tax Policy and Investment," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 53049, September.
    18. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2005. "Taxes, Regulations, and the Value of U.S. and U.K. Corporations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 767-796.
    19. Bruno Strulovici, 2010. "Learning While Voting: Determinants of Collective Experimentation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 933-971, May.
    20. Pantzalis, Christos & Stangeland, David A. & Turtle, Harry J., 2000. "Political elections and the resolution of uncertainty: The international evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1575-1604, October.
    21. Allan Drazen & William Easterly, 2001. "Do Crises Induce Reform? Simple Empirical Tests of Conventional Wisdom," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 129-157, July.
    22. Cuoco, Domenico & Kaniel, Ron, 2011. "Equilibrium prices in the presence of delegated portfolio management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 264-296, August.
    23. Clemens Sialm, 2009. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1356-1383, September.
    24. Coate, Stephen & Morris, Stephen, 1995. "On the Form of Transfers in Special Interests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1210-1235, December.
    25. M. Max Croce & Howard Kung & Thien T. Nguyen & Lukas Schmid, 2012. "Fiscal Policies and Asset Prices," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(9), pages 2635-2672.
    26. Thien Nguyen & Lukas Schmid & Howard Kung & Mariano Croce, 2012. "Fiscal Policies and Asset Prices," 2012 Meeting Papers 565, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    27. Sialm, Clemens, 2006. "Stochastic taxation and asset pricing in dynamic general equilibrium," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 511-540, March.
    28. Maria Boutchkova & Hitesh Doshi & Art Durnev & Alexander Molchanov, 2012. "Precarious Politics and Return Volatility," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 1111-1154.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    2. Bryan Kelly & Ľuboš Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2016. "The Price of Political Uncertainty: Theory and Evidence from the Option Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(5), pages 2417-2480, October.
    3. Lubos Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2012. "Uncertainty about Government Policy and Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1219-1264, August.
    4. Thien Nguyen, 2019. "Public Debt and the Slope of the Term Structure," 2019 Meeting Papers 957, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Lubos Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2012. "Uncertainty about Government Policy and Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1219-1264, August.
    6. Croce, M.M. & Nguyen, Thien T. & Raymond, S. & Schmid, L., 2019. "Government debt and the returns to innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 205-225.
    7. Schmid, Lukas & Croce, Mariano & Raymond, Steve & Nguyen, Thiên Tung, 2018. "Government Debt and the Returns to Innovation," CEPR Discussion Papers 12617, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Apergis, Nicholas, 2015. "Policy risks, technological risks and stock returns: New evidence from the US stock market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 359-365.
    9. Chan, Kam Fong & Gray, Philip & Gray, Stephen & Zhong, Angel, 2020. "Political uncertainty, market anomalies and Presidential honeymoons," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    10. Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2016. "Is there a link between politics and stock returns? A literature survey," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 15-23.
    11. Croce, Mariano & Nguyen, Thien & Raymond, Steve, 2019. "Persistent Government Debt and Aggregate Risk Distribution," CEPR Discussion Papers 13922, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Croce, M. & Nguyen, Thien T. & Raymond, S., 2021. "Persistent government debt and aggregate risk distribution," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 347-367.
    13. Cheng, Xu & Kong, Dongmin & Wang, Junbo, 2021. "Political uncertainty and A-H share premium," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    14. Bree J. Lang & Pratish Patel, 2023. "Funding infrastructure under uncertainty: evidence from tax credit prices," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(3), pages 635-677, June.
    15. Liu, Yang, 2023. "Government debt and risk premia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 18-34.
    16. Kwabi, Frank Obenpong & Boateng, Agyenim & Wonu, Chizindu & Kariuki, Charles & Du, Anna, 2023. "Political uncertainty and cross-border equity portfolio allocation decisions: International evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Markus Leippold & Felix Matthys, 2022. "Economic Policy Uncertainty and the Yield Curve [Pricing the term structure with linear regressions]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(4), pages 751-797.
    18. Christou, Christina & Gupta, Rangan & Jawadi, Fredj, 2021. "Does inequality help in forecasting equity premium in a panel of G7 countries?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    19. Paolo Manasse & Graziano Moramarco & Giulio Trigilia, 2024. "Exchange rates and political uncertainty: the Brexit case," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 91(362), pages 621-652, April.
    20. Mariano Max Croce & Thien T. Nguyen & Steve Raymond, 2019. "Persistent Government Debt and Aggregate Risk Distribution," NBER Working Papers 26177, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political uncertainty; Government policy; Risk premia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:110:y:2013:i:3:p:520-545. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.