IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v86y2023ics1057521922004264.html

The impact of global economic policy uncertainty on portfolio optimization: A Black–Litterman approach

Author

Listed:
  • Han, Yingwei
  • Li, Jie

Abstract

This paper investigates the asymmetric impact of global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU) on global asset allocation. We employ the Double Asymmetric GARCH-MIDAS (DAGM) model to examine the asymmetric effect of GEPU shocks on long-term volatilities of global equities, bonds, commodities, clean energy and Bitcoin. The GEPU-based volatility is used as a proxy for the uncertainty of the investor’s views in the Black-Litterman (BL) framework. Empirical results show that the BL model with GEPU-based views yields higher out-of-sample risk-adjusted returns than other traditional benchmarks in most cases. The findings suggest that investors should consider the influence of GEPU when making portfolio decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Han, Yingwei & Li, Jie, 2023. "The impact of global economic policy uncertainty on portfolio optimization: A Black–Litterman approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:86:y:2023:i:c:s1057521922004264
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2022.102476
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521922004264
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2022.102476?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Jiqian & Ma, Feng & Bouri, Elie & Zhong, Juandan, 2022. "Volatility of clean energy and natural gas, uncertainty indices, and global economic conditions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    2. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91, March.
    3. Białkowski, Jędrzej & Dang, Huong Dieu & Wei, Xiaopeng, 2022. "High policy uncertainty and low implied market volatility: An academic puzzle?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1185-1208.
    4. Bakas, Dimitrios & Triantafyllou, Athanasios, 2018. "The impact of uncertainty shocks on the volatility of commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 96-111.
    5. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    6. Wang, Xiong & Li, Jingyao & Ren, Xiaohang, 2022. "Asymmetric causality of economic policy uncertainty and oil volatility index on time-varying nexus of the clean energy, carbon and green bond," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Fang, Libing & Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Roubaud, David, 2019. "Does global economic uncertainty matter for the volatility and hedging effectiveness of Bitcoin?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 29-36.
    8. 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.
    9. Stefano Ramelli & Alexander F Wagner, 2020. "Feverish Stock Price Reactions to COVID-19," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(3), pages 622-655.
    10. Demir, Ender & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Vigne, Samuel A., 2018. "Does economic policy uncertainty predict the Bitcoin returns? An empirical investigation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 145-149.
    11. Andrew T. Foerster, 2014. "The asymmetric effects of uncertainty on employment," Macro Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 1-2, September.
    12. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    13. Wu, Chang-Che & Ho, Shu-Ling & Wu, Chih-Chiang, 2022. "The determinants of Bitcoin returns and volatility: Perspectives on global and national economic policy uncertainty," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    14. Wolfgang Bessler & Heiko Opfer & Dominik Wolff, 2017. "Multi-asset portfolio optimization and out-of-sample performance: an evaluation of Black–Litterman, mean-variance, and naïve diversification approaches," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, January.
    15. Andrew T. Foerster, 2014. "The asymmetric effects of uncertainty," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q III, pages 5-26.
    16. Bakas, Dimitrios & Triantafyllou, Athanasios, 2020. "Commodity price volatility and the economic uncertainty of pandemics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    17. Badshah, Ihsan & Demirer, Riza & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir, 2019. "The effect of economic policy uncertainty on stock-commodity correlations and its implications on optimal hedging," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Li, Xiao-Ming & Zhang, Bing & Gao, Ruzhao, 2015. "Economic policy uncertainty shocks and stock–bond correlations: Evidence from the US market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 91-96.
    19. Phan, Dinh Hoang Bach & Sharma, Susan Sunila & Tran, Vuong Thao, 2018. "Can economic policy uncertainty predict stock returns? Global evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 134-150.
    20. Lee, Kiryoung & Jeon, Yoontae & Jo, Chanik, 2020. "Chinese economic policy uncertainty and U.S. households' portfolio decisions," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    21. Christian Conrad & Onno Kleen, 2020. "Two are better than one: Volatility forecasting using multiplicative component GARCH‐MIDAS models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 19-45, January.
    22. Fang, Libing & Yu, Honghai & Li, Lei, 2017. "The effect of economic policy uncertainty on the long-term correlation between U.S. stock and bond markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 139-145.
    23. Robert F. Engle & Eric Ghysels & Bumjean Sohn, 2013. "Stock Market Volatility and Macroeconomic Fundamentals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 776-797, July.
    24. Bouri, Elie & Molnár, Peter & Azzi, Georges & Roubaud, David & Hagfors, Lars Ivar, 2017. "On the hedge and safe haven properties of Bitcoin: Is it really more than a diversifier?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 192-198.
    25. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    26. Jonathan Brogaard & Lili Dai & Phong T H Ngo & Bohui Zhang, 2020. "Global Political Uncertainty and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 1737-1780.
    27. Jonathan Brogaard & Lili Dai & Phong T H Ngo & Bohui Zhang, 2020. "Global Political Uncertainty and Asset Prices," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1737-1780.
    28. Baur, Dirk G. & Dimpfl, Thomas, 2018. "Asymmetric volatility in cryptocurrencies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 148-151.
    29. Liang, Chao & Umar, Muhammad & Ma, Feng & Huynh, Toan L.D., 2022. "Climate policy uncertainty and world renewable energy index volatility forecasting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    30. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    31. Christos Ioannidis & Kook Ka, 2021. "Economic Policy Uncertainty and Bond Risk Premia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(6), pages 1479-1522, September.
    32. Ma, Feng & Guo, Yangli & Chevallier, Julien & Huang, Dengshi, 2022. "Macroeconomic attention, economic policy uncertainty, and stock volatility predictability," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    33. Steven Beach & Alexei Orlov, 2007. "An application of the Black–Litterman model with EGARCH-M-derived views for international portfolio management," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 21(2), pages 147-166, June.
    34. Jonathan Brogaard & Andrew Detzel, 2015. "The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 3-18, January.
    35. Nicholas Bloom & Ian Wright & Jose Maria Barrero, 2016. "Short- and Long-run Uncertainty," 2016 Meeting Papers 1576, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    36. Huseyin Gulen & Mihai Ion, 2016. "Editor's Choice Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 523-564.
    37. Kong, Qunxi & Li, Rongrong & Wang, Ziqi & Peng, Dan, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and firm investment decisions: Dilemma or opportunity?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    38. Amendola, Alessandra & Candila, Vincenzo & Gallo, Giampiero M., 2019. "On the asymmetric impact of macro–variables on volatility," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 135-152.
    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. Liu, Zhenhua & Zhang, Huiying & Ding, Zhihua & Lv, Tao & Wang, Xu & Wang, Deqing, 2022. "When are the effects of economic policy uncertainty on oil–stock correlations larger? Evidence from a regime-switching analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    2. Al-Thaqeb, Saud Asaad & Algharabali, Barrak Ghanim, 2019. "Economic policy uncertainty: A literature review," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    3. Tan, Xueping & Zhong, Yiran & Vivian, Andrew & Geng, Yong & Wang, Ziyi & Zhao, Difei, 2024. "Towards an era of multi-source uncertainty: A systematic and bibliometric analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    4. Mokni, Khaled & Ajmi, Ahdi Noomen & Bouri, Elie & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty and the Bitcoin-US stock nexus," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 57.
    5. Raza, Syed Ali & Masood, Amna & Benkraiem, Ramzi & Urom, Christian, 2023. "Forecasting the volatility of precious metals prices with global economic policy uncertainty in pre and during the COVID-19 period: Novel evidence from the GARCH-MIDAS approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    6. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Menelaos Karanasos & Stavroula Yfanti, 2019. "Macro-Financial Linkages in the High-Frequency Domain: The Effects of Uncertainty on Realized Volatility," CESifo Working Paper Series 8000, CESifo.
    7. Hossein Asgharian & Charlotte Christiansen & Ai Jun Hou, 2017. "Economic Policy Uncertainty and Long-Run Stock Market Volatility and Correlation," CREATES Research Papers 2018-12, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    8. Smales, Lee A., 2020. "Examining the relationship between policy uncertainty and market uncertainty across the G7," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Lee A. Smales, 2021. "Policy uncertainty in Australian financial markets," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 46(3), pages 523-547, August.
    10. Cheng, Mengyao, 2022. "Legislative gridlock and stock return dispersion around roll-call votes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    11. Dang, Tung Lam & Luong, Hoang & Nguyen, Lily & Nguyen, My, 2024. "Political uncertainty and commonality in liquidity," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    12. Afees A. Salisu & Riza Demirer & Rangan Gupta, 2023. "Policy uncertainty and stock market volatility revisited: The predictive role of signal quality," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2307-2321, December.
    13. Yuan, Di & Li, Sufang & Li, Rong & Zhang, Feipeng, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty, oil and stock markets in BRIC: Evidence from quantiles analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    14. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Bai, Hengyu & Wu, Ji, 2020. "Investor sentiment and the economic policy uncertainty premium," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Liu, Jinjing & Wang, Hong, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and the cost of capital," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    16. Hong, Yun & Zhang, Rushan & Zhang, Feipeng, 2024. "Time-varying causality impact of economic policy uncertainty on stock market returns: Global evidence from developed and emerging countries," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    17. Vural-Yavaş, Çiğdem, 2020. "Corporate risk-taking in developed countries: The influence of economic policy uncertainty and macroeconomic conditions," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    18. Cheng, Maoyong & Duan, Huiqin & Li, Liuchuang, 2026. "Political leaders’ absences and equity market returns: Evidence from a novel uncertainty in China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    19. Wang, Pengfei & Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua & Zhang, Wei, 2020. "How does economic policy uncertainty affect the bitcoin market?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    20. Caixe, Daniel Ferreira, 2022. "Corporate governance and investment sensitivity to policy uncertainty in Brazil," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PB).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:finana:v:86:y:2023:i:c:s1057521922004264. 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/620166 .

    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.