IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed011/86.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty about Government Policy and Stock Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Pietro Veronesi

    (Chicago Booth)

  • Lubos Pastor

    (Univ of Chicago)

Abstract

We analyze how changes in government policy affect stock prices. Our general equilibrium model features uncertainty about government policy and a government that has both economic and non-economic motives. The government tends to change its policy after performance downturns in the private sector. Stock prices fall at the announcements of policy changes, on average. The price fall is expected to be large if uncertainty about government policy is large, as well as if the policy change is preceded by a short or shallow downturn. Policy changes increase volatility, risk premia, and correlations among stocks. The jump risk premium associated with policy decisions is positive, on average.

Suggested Citation

  • Pietro Veronesi & Lubos Pastor, 2011. "Uncertainty about Government Policy and Stock Prices," 2011 Meeting Papers 86, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  • Handle: RePEc:red:sed011:86
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben S. Bernanke & Kenneth N. Kuttner, 2005. "What Explains the Stock Market's Reaction to Federal Reserve Policy?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1221-1257, June.
    2. Hermes, Niels & Lensink, Robert, 2001. "Capital flight and the uncertainty of government policies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 377-381, June.
    3. Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Policy uncertainty and private investment in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 229-242, October.
    4. Hassett, Kevin A & Metcalf, Gilbert E, 1999. "Investment with Uncertain Tax Policy: Does Random Tax Policy Discourage Investment?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(457), pages 372-393, July.
    5. Thorbecke, Willem, 1997. "On Stock Market Returns and Monetary Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 635-654, June.
    6. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    7. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 1990. "A Positive Theory of Fiscal Deficits and Government Debt," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 403-414.
    9. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2005. "Taxes, Regulations, and the Value of U.S. and U.K. Corporations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 767-796.
    10. Francisco J. Gomes & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Luis M. Viceira, 2012. "The Excess Burden of Government Indecision," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 125-164.
    11. Savor, Pavel & Wilson, Mungo, 2013. "How Much Do Investors Care About Macroeconomic Risk? Evidence from Scheduled Economic Announcements," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 343-375, April.
    12. Dixit, Avinash K, 1989. "Entry and Exit Decisions under Uncertainty," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 620-638, June.
    13. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    14. Dani Rodrik, 1996. "Understanding Economic Policy Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 9-41, March.
    15. Rigobon, Roberto & Sack, Brian, 2004. "The impact of monetary policy on asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1553-1575, November.
    16. Pedro Santa‐Clara & Rossen Valkanov, 2003. "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1841-1872, October.
    17. Ben S. Bernanke, 1983. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(1), pages 85-106.
    18. Pindyck, Robert S, 1988. "Irreversible Investment, Capacity Choice, and the Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 969-985, December.
    19. Clemens Sialm, 2009. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1356-1383, September.
    20. Bruno Strulovici, 2010. "Learning While Voting: Determinants of Collective Experimentation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 933-971, May.
    21. Robert McDonald & Daniel Siegel, 1986. "The Value of Waiting to Invest," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 707-727.
    22. Kevin A. Hassett, 1999. "Tax Policy and Investment," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 53049, September.
    23. Bruno, Michael & Easterly, William, 1996. "Inflation's Children: Tales of Crises That Beget Reforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 213-217, May.
    24. Aït-Sahalia, Yacine & Andritzky, Jochen & Jobst, Andreas & Nowak, Sylwia & Tamirisa, Natalia, 2012. "Market response to policy initiatives during the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 162-177.
    25. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    26. Klingebiel, Daniela & Kroszner, Randy & Laeven, Luc & van Oijen, Pieter, 2001. "Stock market responses to bank restructuring policies during the East Asian crisis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2571, The World Bank.
    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. 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.
    2. Chan, Kam Fong & Gray, Philip & Gray, Stephen & Zhong, Angel, 2020. "Political uncertainty, market anomalies and Presidential honeymoons," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    4. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    5. Long, Shaobo & Pei, Hongxia & Tian, Hao & Li, Fangfang, 2021. "Asymmetric impacts of economic policy uncertainty, capital cost, and raw material cost on China’s investment," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 129-144.
    6. Apergis, Nicholas, 2015. "Policy risks, technological risks and stock returns: New evidence from the US stock market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 359-365.
    7. Jonathan Brogaard & Andrew Detzel, 2015. "The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 3-18, January.
    8. Hanno Dihle, 2015. "Real Options in a Ramsey style Growth Model," Discussion Paper Series 32, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Dec 2015.
    9. Nina Biljanovska & Francesco Grigoli & Martina Hengge, 2021. "Fear thy neighbor: Spillovers from economic policy uncertainty," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 409-438, May.
    10. Kyle Handley & Nuno Limão, 2018. "Trade and Investment under Policy Uncertainty: Theory and Firm Evidence," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 4, pages 89-122, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Klaus Abberger & Andreas Dibiasi & Michael Siegenthaler & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2016. "The Effect of Policy Uncertainty on Investment Plans," KOF Working papers 16-406, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    12. Klaus Abberger & Andreas Dibiasi & Michael Siegenthaler & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2016. "The Effect of Policy Uncertainty on Investment Plans: Evidence from the Unexpected Acceptance of a Far-Reaching Referendum in Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 5887, CESifo.
    13. Jackson Dorsey, 2019. "Waiting for the Courts: Effects of Policy Uncertainty on Pollution and Investment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(4), pages 1453-1496, December.
    14. Anand, Kartik & Gai, Prasanna & König, Philipp Johann, 2020. "Leaping into the dark: A theory of policy gambles," Discussion Papers 07/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. Handley, Kyle, 2014. "Exporting under trade policy uncertainty: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 50-66.
    16. Stan Veuger & Jeffrey Clemens, 2015. "Innovation and uncertainty in the medical industry: Evidence from the case of Myriad Genetics, Inc," AEI Economics Working Papers 834894, American Enterprise Institute.
    17. Jeffrey Clemens & Stan Veuger, 2017. "Risks To The Returns To Medical Innovation: The Case Of Myriad Genetics," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 345-357, April.
    18. Hua Cheng & Kishore Gawande & Steven Ongena & Shusen Qi, 2020. "Get beyond policy uncertainty: Evidence from political connections," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 20-77, Swiss Finance Institute.
    19. Kang, Wensheng & Lee, Kiseok & Ratti, Ronald A., 2014. "Economic policy uncertainty and firm-level investment," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 42-53.
    20. Ozili, Peterson Kitakogelu, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty in banking: a literature review," MPRA Paper 108017, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • 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
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:red:sed011:86. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.