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Monetary Policy Uncertainty and the Stock Market

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  • Massa, Massimo
  • Locarno, Alberto

Abstract

We study the relationship between inflation and stock returns focusing on the signalling content of inflation. Investors use inflation to learn about the stance of the monetary policy. Depending on investors? beliefs, a change in consumption prices has different effects on the risk premium. A change in consumption prices that confirms investors' beliefs reduces stock risk premia, while a change that contradicts them increases risk premia. This may generate a negative correlation between returns and inflation that explains the Fisher puzzle. We model this intuition and test its implication on US data. We construct a market-based proxy of monetary policy uncertainty, we show that it is priced and that, by conditioning on it, the Fisher puzzle disappears.

Suggested Citation

  • Massa, Massimo & Locarno, Alberto, 2005. "Monetary Policy Uncertainty and the Stock Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 4828, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4828
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary policy uncertainty; Asset pricing; Learning risk; Risk factors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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