IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jrpoli/v79y2022ics0301420722005840.html

Predictability of the renewable energy market returns: The informational gains from the climate policy uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Yongan
  • Li, Ming
  • Yan, Wen
  • Bai, Jiancheng

Abstract

This study investigates the forecasting ability of the Climate Policy Uncertainty (CPU) index on the global renewable energy market returns. We show that CPU is of great excellence positive predictor of the returns of the renewable energy market, and better than the forecasting ability of other predictors. Moreover, we show that a higher CPU index owns more remarkable predictive ability than a lower CPU index and the CPU index is more powerful in predicting the renewable energy market returns after the Paris agreement, which indicates the sensitivity of the renewable energy market to climate policy has dramatically increased. We also find that the predictive power CPU index can enhance the economic gain on asset allocation. Furthermore, we find some similar predictive results on the global renewable energy market in the US NASDAQ OMX Renewable Energy Generation return (GRNREG), Global X Renewable Energy Producers ETT (RNRG), and Renewable Energy Group Inc (REGI) markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Yongan & Li, Ming & Yan, Wen & Bai, Jiancheng, 2022. "Predictability of the renewable energy market returns: The informational gains from the climate policy uncertainty," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:79:y:2022:i:c:s0301420722005840
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.103141
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420722005840
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.103141?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. Yan, Xiang & Bai, Jiancheng & Zhang, Yueyan & Hu, Shiliang, 2022. "Can the ecological environment reverse feed renewable energy technology innovation? -- Heterogeneity test from the Yangtze River Economic Belt," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 1381-1392.
    2. Goodell, John W. & Vähämaa, Sami, 2013. "US presidential elections and implied volatility: The role of political uncertainty," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1108-1117.
    3. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Filis, George, 2014. "Dynamic Spillovers of Oil Price Shocks and Policy Uncertainty," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 166, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    4. Venturini, Alessio, 2022. "Climate change, risk factors and stock returns: A review of the literature," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    5. John Y. Campbell & Samuel B. Thompson, 2008. "Predicting Excess Stock Returns Out of Sample: Can Anything Beat the Historical Average?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1509-1531, July.
    6. You, Wanhai & Guo, Yawei & Zhu, Huiming & Tang, Yong, 2017. "Oil price shocks, economic policy uncertainty and industry stock returns in China: Asymmetric effects with quantile regression," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-18.
    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. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    10. Chao Liang & Yu Wei & Xiafei Li & Xuhui Zhang & Yifeng Zhang, 2020. "Uncertainty and crude oil market volatility: new evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(27), pages 2945-2959, May.
    11. Volker H. Hoffmann & Thomas Trautmann & Jens Hamprecht, 2009. "Regulatory Uncertainty: A Reason to Postpone Investments? Not Necessarily," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(7), pages 1227-1253, November.
    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. Li, Yan & Liang, Chao & Ma, Feng & Wang, Jiqian, 2020. "The role of the IDEMV in predicting European stock market volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    14. repec:aen:journl:2011v32-01-a04 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Xu, Yongan & Wang, Jianqiong & Chen, Zhonglu & Liang, Chao, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock market returns: New evidence," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    16. Bekaert, Geert & Engstrom, Eric & Xing, Yuhang, 2009. "Risk, uncertainty, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 59-82, January.
    17. Rodriguez Lopez, Juan Miguel & Sakhel, Alice & Busch, Timo, 2017. "Corporate investments and environmental regulation: The role of regulatory uncertainty, regulation-induced uncertainty, and investment history," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 91-101.
    18. Liang, Chao & Xu, Yongan & Wang, Jianqiong & Yang, Mo, 2022. "Whether dimensionality reduction techniques can improve the ability of sentiment proxies to predict stock market returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    19. Chen, Zhonglu & Ye, Yong & Li, Xiafei, 2022. "Forecasting China's crude oil futures volatility: New evidence from the MIDAS-RV model and COVID-19 pandemic," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    20. Li, Xiafei & Liang, Chao & Chen, Zhonglu & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Forecasting crude oil volatility with uncertainty indicators: New evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    21. Atsushi Inoue & Lutz Kilian, 2005. "In-Sample or Out-of-Sample Tests of Predictability: Which One Should We Use?," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 371-402.
    22. Busetti, Fabio & Marcucci, Juri, 2013. "Comparing forecast accuracy: A Monte Carlo investigation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 13-27.
    23. Zhang, Dayong & Lei, Lei & Ji, Qiang & Kutan, Ali M., 2019. "Economic policy uncertainty in the US and China and their impact on the global markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 47-56.
    24. 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).
    25. Chen, Zhonglu & Liang, Chao & Umar, Muhammad, 2021. "Is investor sentiment stronger than VIX and uncertainty indices in predicting energy volatility?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    26. Diaz-Rainey, Ivan & Gehricke, Sebastian A. & Roberts, Helen & Zhang, Renzhu, 2021. "Trump vs. Paris: The impact of climate policy on U.S. listed oil and gas firm returns and volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    27. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    28. Blyth, William & Bradley, Richard & Bunn, Derek & Clarke, Charlie & Wilson, Tom & Yang, Ming, 2007. "Investment risks under uncertain climate change policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5766-5773, November.
    29. He, Mengxi & Zhang, Yaojie, 2022. "Climate policy uncertainty and the stock return predictability of the oil industry," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    30. Jonathan Brogaard & Andrew Detzel, 2015. "The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 3-18, January.
    31. Kang, Wensheng & Perez de Gracia, Fernando & Ratti, Ronald A., 2017. "Oil price shocks, policy uncertainty, and stock returns of oil and gas corporations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 344-359.
    32. Xu, Zhaoxia, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty, cost of capital, and corporate innovation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    33. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Filis, George, 2014. "Dynamic spillovers of oil price shocks and economic policy uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 433-447.
    34. Bansal, Ravi & Khatchatrian, Varoujan & Yaron, Amir, 2005. "Interpretable asset markets?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 531-560, April.
    35. Jian Chen & Fuwei Jiang & Guoshi Tong, 2017. "Economic policy uncertainty in China and stock market expected returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1265-1286, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pham, Son D. & Nguyen, Thao T.T. & Do, Hung X., 2024. "Impact of climate policy uncertainty on return spillover among green assets and portfolio implications," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Ghosh, Indranil & Jana, Rabin K., 2024. "Clean energy stock price forecasting and response to macroeconomic variables: A novel framework using Facebook's Prophet, NeuralProphet and explainable AI," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    3. Sassi Rekik & Imed Khabbouchi & Souheil El Alimi, 2025. "A Spatial Analysis for Optimal Wind Site Selection from a Sustainable Supply-Chain-Management Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-30, February.
    4. Huang, Zihuang & Wang, Shaokun & Li, Kaifeng, 2025. "The impact of informed trading on liquidity in Chinese crude oil futures," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    5. Ahmed, Walid M.A. & Sleem, Mohamed A.E., 2025. "On the dynamic interdependence between risk factors and clean energy stock prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    6. Iqbal, Najaf & Bouri, Elie & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Alsagr, Naif, 2024. "Asymmetric impacts of Chinese climate policy uncertainty on Chinese asset prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    7. Kuang, Wei, 2025. "A tale of two risks: Differential diversification roles of clean energy sector stocks in physical and transition climate risk management," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    8. Zhang, Hongwei & Hong, Huojun & Ding, Shijie, 2023. "The role of climate policy uncertainty on the long-term correlation between crude oil and clean energy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    9. Hyder Ali & Salma Naz, 2025. "Forecasting Equity Premium in the Face of Climate Policy Uncertainty," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 513-546, March.
    10. Mastroeni, Loretta & Mazzoccoli, Alessandro & Quaresima, Greta, 2025. "Effects of the climate-related sentiment on agricultural spot prices: Insights from Wavelet Rényi Entropy analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    11. Su, Chi Wei & Song, Xin Yue & Dou, Junyi & Qin, Meng, 2025. "Fossil fuels or renewable energy? The dilemma of climate policy choices," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    12. He, Zhifang & Qian, Wanchuan & Miftah, Badir & Zoynul Abedin, Mohammad, 2025. "Quantile time-frequency spillovers among climate policy uncertainty, energy markets, and stock markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    13. Tian, Lihui & Li, Xin & Lee, Cheng-Wen & Spulbăr, Cristi, 2024. "Investigating the asymmetric impact of artificial intelligence on renewable energy under climate policy uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Huthaifa Sameeh Alqaralleh, 2023. "The extreme spillover from climate policy uncertainty to the Chinese sector stock market: wavelet time-varying approach," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17, December.
    15. Seyed Alireza Athari & Dervis Kirikkaleli, 2025. "How do climate policy uncertainty and renewable energy and clean technology stock prices co-move? evidence from Canada," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 353-371, January.
    16. Ali Ragab Ali & Kolawole Iyiola & Ahmad Alzubi, 2025. "Harnessing ESG Sustainability, Climate Policy Uncertainty and Information and Communication Technology for Energy Transition," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-24, October.
    17. Liu, Yin & Alnafrah, Ibrahim & Zhou, Yaying, 2024. "A systemic efficiency measurement of resource management and sustainable practices: A network bias-corrected DEA assessment of OECD countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    18. Donia Besher & Anirban Sengupta & Tanujit Chakraborty, 2025. "Probabilistic Forecasting of Climate Policy Uncertainty: The Role of Macro-financial Variables and Google Search Data," Papers 2507.12276, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    19. Wang, Yihan & Goutte, Stephane & Bouri, Elie & Sokhanvar, Amin, 2024. "Climate risks and the realized higher-order moments of financial markets: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PB), pages 1064-1087.

    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. Chen, Juan & Ma, Feng & Qiu, Xuemei & Li, Tao, 2023. "The role of categorical EPU indices in predicting stock-market returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 365-378.
    2. Wen, Danyan & He, Mengxi & Wang, Yudong & Zhang, Yaojie, 2024. "Forecasting crude oil market volatility: A comprehensive look at uncertainty variables," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 1022-1041.
    3. Li, Xiao-Xin & Xie, Chi & Wang, Gang-Jin & Zhu, You & Li, Zhao-Chen & Zhang, Zhi-Yu, 2025. "Enhancing stock market return predictability by using a novel autoencoder-based aggregate EPU index," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. 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).
    5. 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).
    6. Jun Wen & Samia Khalid & Hamid Mahmood & Xiuyun Yang, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and growth nexus in Pakistan: a new evidence using NARDL model," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1701-1715, August.
    7. Huang, Yisu & Ma, Feng & Bouri, Elie & Huang, Dengshi, 2023. "A comprehensive investigation on the predictive power of economic policy uncertainty from non-U.S. countries for U.S. stock market returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Zhang, Yaojie & Zhao, Xinyi & Zhang, Zhikai, 2025. "Financial regulatory policy uncertainty: An informative predictor for financial industry stock returns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    10. Xu, Yongan & Wang, Jianqiong & Chen, Zhonglu & Liang, Chao, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock market returns: New evidence," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    11. Hyder Ali & Salma Naz, 2025. "Forecasting Equity Premium in the Face of Climate Policy Uncertainty," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 513-546, March.
    12. Zeng, Qing & Lu, Xinjie & Dong, Dayong & Li, Pan, 2022. "Category-specific EPU indices, macroeconomic variables and stock market return predictability," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Naveed Khan & Hassan Zada & Ozair Siddiqui & Ehsan Ullah, 2025. "Sectoral Response to Economic Policy Uncertainty in Japan: An Empirical Evidence from the Cross-Quantilogram Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 66(6), pages 4727-4762, December.
    14. Karanasos, M. & Yfanti, S., 2021. "On the Economic fundamentals behind the Dynamic Equicorrelations among Asset classes: Global evidence from Equities, Real estate, and Commodities," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Yang, Tianle & Zhou, Fangxing & Du, Min & Du, Qunyang & Zhou, Shirong, 2023. "Fluctuation in the global oil market, stock market volatility, and economic policy uncertainty: A study of the US and China," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 377-387.
    16. Gilles Dufrénot & William Ginn & Marc Pourroy, 2023. "ENSO Climate Patterns on Global Economic Conditions," AMSE Working Papers 2308, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    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. Shabir Mohsin Hashmi & Muhammad Akram Gilal & Wing-Keung Wong, 2021. "Sustainability of Global Economic Policy and Stock Market Returns in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-18, May.
    19. Golab, Anna & Bannigidadmath, Deepa & Pham, Thach Ngoc & Thuraisamy, Kannan, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and industry return predictability – Evidence from the UK," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 433-447.
    20. 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).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • Q47 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy Forecasting
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation

    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:jrpoli:v:79:y:2022:i:c:s0301420722005840. 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/30467 .

    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.