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Policy News and Stock Market Volatility

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Listed:
  • Scott R. Baker
  • Nicholas Bloom
  • Steven J. Davis
  • Kyle J. Kost

Abstract

We use newspapers to create Equity Market Volatility (EMV) trackers at daily and monthly frequencies. Our headline EMV tracker moves closely with the VIX and the S&P500 returns volatility in and out of sample. We exploit the volume of newspaper text to construct forty category-specific EMV trackers. News about commodity markets, interest rates, real estate markets, aggregate activity, and inflation figure prominently in EMV articles. Policy news is another major source of market volatility: 30 percent of EMV articles discuss tax policy, 30 percent discuss monetary policy, and 25 percent refer to some form of regulation. Combining our newspaper-based trackers with textual analysis of 10-K filings, we obtain monthly firm-level risk exposure measures. These measures help explain the cross-sectional structure of realized volatilities and its evolution over time, even after conditioning on firm and time fixed effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Kyle J. Kost, 2019. "Policy News and Stock Market Volatility," NBER Working Papers 25720, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25720
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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