IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fds/dpaper/202103.html

Political Uncertainty: A High Frequency Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Makram El-Shagi

    (Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, and School of Economics at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan)

Abstract

In this paper we assess the impact of election uncertainty on financial markets using the almost unique natural experiment provided by the 2020 US presidential election. Overshadowed by the COVID-19 crisis and the corresponding changes in election law and behavior – especially with respect to mail-in voting – the counting process generated huge swings in the expected election outcome. All those were purely driven by counting, i.e. after the voting process was finished, giving us the rare opportunity to observe truly exogenous swings in election risk. We show that election risk has a negative impact on economic expectations and that expectations in favor of Trump did not correlate with the positive economic implications that the literature has demonstrated for previous Republican candidates.

Suggested Citation

  • Makram El-Shagi, 2021. "Political Uncertainty: A High Frequency Approach," CFDS Discussion Paper Series 2021/03, Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
    • Handle: RePEc:fds:dpaper:202103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cfds.henuecon.education/images/dpaper/WP_3_2021_electionrisk1.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2021
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Andrew Leigh & Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Competing Approaches to Forecasting Elections: Economic Models, Opinion Polling and Prediction Markets," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(258), pages 325-340, September.
    3. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    4. Brandon Julio & Youngsuk Yook, 2012. "Political Uncertainty and Corporate Investment Cycles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 45-84, February.
    5. Goodell, John W. & McGee, Richard J. & McGroarty, Frank, 2020. "Election uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty and financial market uncertainty: A prediction market analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    6. Knight, Brian, 2007. "Erratum to "Are policy platforms capitalized into equity prices? Evidence from the Bush/Gore 2000 Presidential Election" [J. Public Econ. 90 (4-5) (2006) 751-773]," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 387-387, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2007. "Partisan Impacts on the Economy: Evidence from Prediction Markets and Close Elections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 807-829.
    9. Paul W. Rhode & Koleman S. Strumpf, 2004. "Historical Presidential Betting Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 127-141, Spring.
    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. Nguyen, Phuc Lam Thy & Alsakka, Rasha & Mantovan, Noemi, 2023. "Political preferences and stock markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Ľuboš Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2020. "Political Cycles and Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(11), pages 4011-4045.
    3. Hyeongwoo Kim & Madeline H. Kim, 2021. "U.S. presidential election polls and the economic prospects of China and Mexico," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(54), pages 6231-6248, November.
    4. Nguyen, Phuc Lam Thy & Alsakka, Rasha & Mantovan, Noemi, 2023. "The impact of sovereign credit ratings on voters’ preferences," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Nidhal Mgadmi & Fekria Belhouichet & Néjib Hachicha & Wajdi Moussa, 2025. "US presidential elections and cross-market spillovers: DCC-GARCH R2 analysis of crypto, DeFi, NFTs, and oil," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 5(9), pages 1-36, September.
    6. Hill, Paula & Korczak, Adriana & Korczak, Piotr, 2019. "Political uncertainty exposure of individual companies: The case of the Brexit referendum," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 58-76.
    7. Goodell, John W. & McGee, Richard J. & McGroarty, Frank, 2020. "Election uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty and financial market uncertainty: A prediction market analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Qadan, Mahmoud & Idilbi, Yasmeen, 2022. "Presidential honeymoons, political cycles and the commodity market," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    9. Thanh C. Nguyen & Vítor Castro & Justine Wood, 2022. "Political environment and financial crises," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 417-438, January.
    10. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2006. "Prediction Markets in Theory and Practice," NBER Working Papers 12083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. 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.
    12. Eichler, Stefan & Plaga, Timo, 2020. "The economic record of the government and sovereign bond and stock returns around national elections," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    13. Quoc-Anh Do & Yen-Teik Lee & Bang Dang Nguyen, 2013. "Political Connections and Firm Value: Evidence from the Regression Discontinuity Design of Close Gubernatorial Elections," Working Papers hal-03460972, HAL.
    14. Dorine Boumans & Klaus Gründler & Niklas Potrafke & Fabian Ruthardt, 2021. "The Global Economic Impact of Politicians: Evidence from an International Survey RCT," CESifo Working Paper Series 8833, CESifo.
    15. 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).
    16. Beyer, Deborah B. & Fan, Zaifeng S., 2023. "The calming effects of conflict: The impact of partisan conflict on market volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    17. Redl, Chris, 2020. "Uncertainty matters: Evidence from close elections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    18. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2011. "How Prediction Markets can Save Event Studies," CAMA Working Papers 2011-07, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    19. Lin, K.C. & Dong, Xiaobo, 2025. "Climate policy uncertainty and analyst forecast quality for greenhouse gas-intensive firms," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    20. Fałkowski, Jan & Kurek, Przemysław J. & Lewkowicz, Jacek, 2024. "Politically induced uncertainty and asset-market valuation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fds:dpaper:202103. 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: Kerstin El-Shagi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sehencn.html .

    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.