IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v39y2021ics1544612320301707.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of political and economic uncertainty on the cryptocurrency market

Author

Listed:
  • Colon, Francisco
  • Kim, Chaehyun
  • Kim, Hana
  • Kim, Wonjoon

Abstract

This article explores the effect of uncertainty on the cryptocurrency market. Previous work has been limited to analyzing the effect of uncertainty on Bitcoin. We depart from the previous literature by focusing on top 25 cryptocurrencies and find that the cryptocurrency market can serve as a strong hedge against geopolitical risks in most cases, but it could be considered a weak hedge and safe haven against economic policy uncertainty during a bull market. Notably, the cryptocurrency market reacts to uncertainty differently, depending on the type of uncertainty. Overall, our findings suggest that uncertainty is an essential determinant of cryptocurrency returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Colon, Francisco & Kim, Chaehyun & Kim, Hana & Kim, Wonjoon, 2021. "The effect of political and economic uncertainty on the cryptocurrency market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:39:y:2021:i:c:s1544612320301707
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2020.101621
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612320301707
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2020.101621?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wu, Shan & Tong, Mu & Yang, Zhongyi & Derbali, Abdelkader, 2019. "Does gold or Bitcoin hedge economic policy uncertainty?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 171-178.
    2. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Roubaud, David, 2019. "Herding behaviour in cryptocurrencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 216-221.
    5. Yhlas Sovbetov, 2018. "Factors Influencing Cryptocurrency Prices: Evidence from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litcoin, and Monero," Journal of Economics and Financial Analysis, Tripal Publishing House, vol. 2(2), pages 1-27.
    6. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Moore, Tyler & Oberman, Tali, 2018. "Price manipulation in the Bitcoin ecosystem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 86-96.
    7. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Hedging capabilities of bitcoin. Is it the virtual gold?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 139-144.
    8. Steven J. Davis, 2016. "An Index of Global Economic Policy Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 22740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk & Demir, Ender & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2019. "Effects of the geopolitical risks on Bitcoin returns and volatility," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 511-518.
    10. Gozgor, Giray & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Demir, Ender & Akron, Sagi, 2019. "The relationship between Bitcoin returns and trade policy uncertainty," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 75-82.
    11. Wang, Gang-Jin & Xie, Chi & Wen, Danyan & Zhao, Longfeng, 2019. "When Bitcoin meets economic policy uncertainty (EPU): Measuring risk spillover effect from EPU to Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    12. Sha Wang & Jean-Philippe Vergne, 2017. "Buzz Factor or Innovation Potential: What Explains Cryptocurrencies’ Returns?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-17, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    15. Hu, Yang & Valera, Harold Glenn A. & Oxley, Les, 2019. "Market efficiency of the top market-cap cryptocurrencies: Further evidence from a panel framework," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 138-145.
    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. Al-Shboul, Mohammad & Assaf, Ata & Mokni, Khaled, 2022. "When bitcoin lost its position: Cryptocurrency uncertainty and the dynamic spillover among cryptocurrencies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Singh, Sanjeet & Bansal, Pooja & Bhardwaj, Nav, 2022. "Correlation between geopolitical risk, economic policy uncertainty, and Bitcoin using partial and multiple wavelet coherence in P5 + 1 nations," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Conlon, Thomas & Corbet, Shaen & McGee, Richard J., 2020. "Are cryptocurrencies a safe haven for equity markets? An international perspective from the COVID-19 pandemic," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    4. Jiang, Yonghong & Wu, Lanxin & Tian, Gengyu & Nie, He, 2021. "Do cryptocurrencies hedge against EPU and the equity market volatility during COVID-19? – New evidence from quantile coherency analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Flori, Andrea, 2019. "News and subjective beliefs: A Bayesian approach to Bitcoin investments," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 336-356.
    6. Elsayed, Ahmed H. & Gozgor, Giray & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2022. "Volatility and return connectedness of cryptocurrency, gold, and uncertainty: Evidence from the cryptocurrency uncertainty indices," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    7. Wu, Wanshan & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Gozgor, Giray & Leping, Huang, 2021. "Does economic policy uncertainty affect cryptocurrency markets? Evidence from Twitter-based uncertainty measures," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    8. Ahmed H. Elsayed & Giray Gozgor & Chi Keung Marco Lau, 2022. "Causality and dynamic spillovers among cryptocurrencies and currency markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 2026-2040, April.
    9. Papadamou, Stephanos & Kyriazis, Nikolaos A. & Tzeremes, Panayiotis G., 2021. "Non-linear causal linkages of EPU and gold with major cryptocurrencies during bull and bear markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    10. Aurelio F. Bariviera & Ignasi Merediz‐Solà, 2021. "Where Do We Stand In Cryptocurrencies Economic Research? A Survey Based On Hybrid Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 377-407, April.
    11. Fang, Tong & Su, Zhi & Yin, Libo, 2020. "Economic fundamentals or investor perceptions? The role of uncertainty in predicting long-term cryptocurrency volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    12. Sangyup Choi & Junhyeok Shin, 2020. "Brave New World? Bitcoin is not the New Gold: Understanding Cryptocurrency Price Dynamics," Working papers 2020rwp-167, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
    13. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2022. "Robust drivers of Bitcoin price movements: An extreme bounds analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Das, Debojyoti & Le Roux, Corlise Liesl & Jana, R.K. & Dutta, Anupam, 2020. "Does Bitcoin hedge crude oil implied volatility and structural shocks? A comparison with gold, commodity and the US Dollar," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    15. Elsayed, Ahmed H. & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2022. "Risk transmissions between bitcoin and traditional financial assets during the COVID-19 era: The role of global uncertainties," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    16. Qin, Meng & Su, Chi-Wei & Tao, Ran, 2021. "BitCoin: A new basket for eggs?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 896-907.
    17. Choi, Sangyup & Shin, Junhyeok, 2022. "Bitcoin: An inflation hedge but not a safe haven," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    18. Ren, Xiaohang & Wang, Rui & Duan, Kun & Chen, Jinyu, 2022. "Dynamics of the sheltering role of Bitcoin against crude oil market crash with varying severity of the COVID-19: A comparison with gold," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Khalid Khan & Jiluo Sun & Sinem Derindere Koseoglu & Ashfaq U. Rehman, 2021. "Revisiting Bitcoin Price Behavior Under Global Economic Uncertainty," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, August.
    20. Helder Miguel Correia Virtuoso Sebastião & Paulo José Osório Rupino Da Cunha & Pedro Manuel Cortesão Godinho, 2021. "Cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Overview and future perspectives," International Journal of Economics and Business Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 21(3), pages 305-342.

    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:finlet:v:39:y:2021:i:c:s1544612320301707. 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/frl .

    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.