IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v143y2022i3p1185-1208.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High policy uncertainty and low implied market volatility: An academic puzzle?

Author

Listed:
  • Białkowski, Jędrzej
  • Dang, Huong Dieu
  • Wei, Xiaopeng

Abstract

Motivated by the extremely low level of the CBOE VIX accompanied by the high level of U.S. economic policy uncertainty in the period of late 2016 to the end of 2017, we examine the factors affecting the relationship between market volatility and economic policy uncertainty in the United States and the United Kingdom. Our analysis shows that low-quality political signals, higher opinion divergence among investors, and exceptional equity market performance consistently weaken the positive relationship between implied market volatility and policy uncertainty. Our findings help to explain the divergence between the market volatility index and economic policy uncertainty post the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.

Suggested Citation

  • Białkowski, Jędrzej & Dang, Huong Dieu & Wei, Xiaopeng, 2022. "High policy uncertainty and low implied market volatility: An academic puzzle?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1185-1208.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:143:y:2022:i:3:p:1185-1208
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.05.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X21001938
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.05.011?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ritter, Jay R., 2005. "Economic growth and equity returns," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 489-503, November.
    2. Jun Pan & Allen M. Poteshman, 2006. "The Information in Option Volume for Future Stock Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 871-908.
    3. Atilgan, Yigit & Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Gunaydin, A. Doruk, 2020. "Left-tail momentum: Underreaction to bad news, costly arbitrage and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 725-753.
    4. Siganos, Antonios & Vagenas-Nanos, Evangelos & Verwijmeren, Patrick, 2017. "Divergence of sentiment and stock market trading," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 130-141.
    5. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    6. 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.
    7. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    8. Johnson, Travis L. & So, Eric C., 2012. "The option to stock volume ratio and future returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 262-286.
    9. Darrat, Ali F. & Zhong, Maosen & Cheng, Louis T.W., 2007. "Intraday volume and volatility relations with and without public news," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2711-2729, September.
    10. Lyócsa, Štefan, 2014. "Growth-returns nexus: Evidence from three Central and Eastern European countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 343-355.
    11. 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.
    12. Bryan Kelly & Hao Jiang, 2014. "Editor's Choice Tail Risk and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(10), pages 2841-2871.
    13. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    14. Lee, Yen-Hsien & Wang, David K., 2016. "Information content of investor trading behavior: Evidence from Taiwan index options market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 149-160.
    15. Mauro, Paolo, 2003. "Stock returns and output growth in emerging and advanced economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 129-153, June.
    16. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    17. Altig, Dave & Baker, Scott & Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nicholas & Bunn, Philip & Chen, Scarlet & Davis, Steven J. & Leather, Julia & Meyer, Brent & Mihaylov, Emil & Mizen, Paul & Parker, Nicholas &, 2020. "Economic uncertainty before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    18. Carlin, Bruce I. & Longstaff, Francis A. & Matoba, Kyle, 2014. "Disagreement and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 226-238.
    19. Verma, Rahul & Soydemir, Gökçe, 2009. "The impact of individual and institutional investor sentiment on the market price of risk," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 1129-1145, August.
    20. Xiao-lin Li & Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Tsangyao Chang, 2016. "The Causal Relationship Between Economic Policy Uncertainty and Stock Returns in China and India: Evidence from a Bootstrap Rolling Window Approach," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(3), pages 674-689, March.
    21. Bernard Dumas & Alexander Kurshev & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Equilibrium Portfolio Strategies in the Presence of Sentiment Risk and Excess Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 579-629, April.
    22. (Jeremy) Chiu, Ching-wai & Harris, Richard D.F. & Stoja, Evarist & Chin, Michael, 2018. "Financial market Volatility, macroeconomic fundamentals and investor Sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 130-145.
    23. Klößner, Stefan & Sekkel, Rodrigo, 2014. "International spillovers of policy uncertainty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 508-512.
    24. 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.
    25. Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Levy, Haim, 2009. "Is There an Intertemporal Relation between Downside Risk and Expected Returns?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 883-909, August.
    26. Bonaime, Alice & Gulen, Huseyin & Ion, Mihai, 2018. "Does policy uncertainty affect mergers and acquisitions?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(3), pages 531-558.
    27. Shleifer, Andrei, 2000. "Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292272.
    28. Wang, Albert Y. & Young, Michael, 2020. "Terrorist attacks and investor risk preference: Evidence from mutual fund flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 491-514.
    29. Roger K. Loh & René M. Stulz, 2018. "Is Sell‐Side Research More Valuable in Bad Times?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(3), pages 959-1013, June.
    30. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    31. Jonathan Brogaard & Andrew Detzel, 2015. "The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 3-18, January.
    32. 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).
    33. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
    34. Bathia, Deven & Bredin, Don, 2018. "Investor sentiment: Does it augment the performance of asset pricing models?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 290-303.
    35. Naes, Randi & Skjeltorp, Johannes A., 2006. "Order book characteristics and the volume-volatility relation: Empirical evidence from a limit order market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 408-432, November.
    36. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    37. Chan, Wesley S. & Frankel, Richard & Kothari, S.P., 2004. "Testing behavioral finance theories using trends and consistency in financial performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 3-50, December.
    38. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Ng, Lilian K., 1998. "International evidence on the stock market and aggregate economic activity," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 281-296, September.
    39. van Oordt, Maarten R. C. & Zhou, Chen, 2016. "Systematic Tail Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 685-705, April.
    40. Andrea Buraschi & Alexei Jiltsov, 2006. "Model Uncertainty and Option Markets with Heterogeneous Beliefs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2841-2897, December.
    41. Fama, Eugene F, 1990. "Stock Returns, Expected Returns, and Real Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1089-1108, September.
    42. Hatice Ozer Balli & Bent Sørensen, 2013. "Interaction effects in econometrics," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 583-603, August.
    43. Malliaropulos, Dimitris & Migiakis, Petros, 2018. "The re-pricing of sovereign risks following the Global Financial Crisis," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 39-56.
    44. Aviral K. Tiwari & Claudiu T. Albulescu & Rangan Gupta, 2016. "Time-frequency relationship between US output with commodity and asset prices," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(3), pages 227-242, January.
    45. Liu, Li & Zhang, Tao, 2015. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock market volatility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 99-105.
    46. De Bondt, Werner P. M., 1993. "Betting on trends: Intuitive forecasts of financial risk and return," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 355-371, November.
    47. Huseyin Gulen & Mihai Ion, 2016. "Editor's Choice Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 523-564.
    48. Kim, Kenneth A. & Nofsinger, John R., 2008. "Behavioral finance in Asia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-2), pages 1-7, January.
    49. Ferson, Wayne E & Harvey, Campbell R, 1993. "The Risk and Predictability of International Equity Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 527-566.
    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. Zhongbo Jing & Shiyu Lu & Yang Zhao & Jun Zhou, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty, corporate investment decisions and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(S1), pages 1477-1502, April.
    2. Liu, Wei & Garrett, Ian, 2023. "Regime-dependent effects of macroeconomic uncertainty on realized volatility in the U.S. stock market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    3. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Kyriacou, Kyriacos & Spagnolo, Nicola, 2023. "Aggregate insider trading and stock market volatility in the UK," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Bouteska, Ahmed & Sharif, Taimur & Hajek, Petr & Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul, 2024. "Aversion and ambiguity: On the robustness of the macroeconomic uncertainty measure framework," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(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. Wang, Zhuqing & Wang, Xinyu & Cheng, Qiuying & Shi, Song, 2024. "Heterogeneous impact of economic and political uncertainty on green bond volatility: Evidence from the MRS-GARCH-MIDAS-Skewed T model," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    7. Christos Floros & Emilios Galariotis & Konstantinos Gkillas & Efstathios Magerakis & Constantin Zopounidis, 2024. "Time-varying firm cash holding and economic policy uncertainty nexus: a quantile regression approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 341(2), pages 859-895, October.
    8. Afees A. Salisu & Riza Demirer & Rangan Gupta, 2023. "Policy uncertainty and stock market volatility revisited: The predictive role of signal quality," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2307-2321, December.
    9. Pham, Linh & Karim, Sitara & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Long, Cheng, 2022. "A tale of two tails among carbon prices, green and non-green cryptocurrencies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Han, Yingwei & Li, Jie, 2023. "The impact of global economic policy uncertainty on portfolio optimization: A Black–Litterman approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    11. Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Senthilkumar, Arunachalam & Arfaoui, Nadia & Mohnot, Rajesh, 2024. "Mapping fear in financial markets: Insights from dynamic networks and centrality measures," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    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. Li, Xiao, 2020. "The impact of economic policy uncertainty on insider trades: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 41-57.
    2. 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).
    3. Smales, Lee A., 2020. "Examining the relationship between policy uncertainty and market uncertainty across the G7," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Attig, Najah & Driss, Hamdi & El Ghoul, Sadok, 2021. "Credit ratings quality in uncertain times," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Afees A. Salisu & Riza Demirer & Rangan Gupta, 2023. "Policy uncertainty and stock market volatility revisited: The predictive role of signal quality," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2307-2321, December.
    6. Al Mamun, Md & Uddin, Gazi Salah & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2020. "Geopolitical risk, uncertainty and Bitcoin investment," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 540(C).
    7. Matousek, Roman & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Papachristopoulou, Andromachi, 2020. "Policy uncertainty and the capital shortfall of global financial firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Theodora Bermpei & Antonios Nikolaos Kalyvas & Lorenzo Neri & Antonella Russo, 2022. "Does economic policy uncertainty matter for financial reporting quality? Evidence from the United States," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 795-845, February.
    9. Omar, Ayman M.A. & Lambe, Brendan J & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2021. "Perceptions of the threat to national security and the stock market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 504-522.
    10. Luu Duc Huynh, Toan, 2020. "The effect of uncertainty on the precious metals market: New insights from Transfer Entropy and Neural Network VAR," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Lee, Kiryoung & Jeon, Yoontae & Nam, Eun-Young, 2021. "Chinese Economic Policy Uncertainty and the Cross-Section of U.S. Asset Returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1063-1077.
    12. Azimli, Asil, 2022. "The impact of policy, political and economic uncertainty on corporate capital investment in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and Turkey," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(2).
    13. Chan, Kam Fong & Marsh, Terry, 2021. "Asset prices, midterm elections, and political uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 276-296.
    14. Boulton, Thomas J., 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and international IPO underpricing," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Misery on Main Street, victory on Wall Street: Economic discomfort and the cross-section of global stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    16. Rehman, Mobeen Ur & Sensoy, Ahmet & Eraslan, Veysel & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2021. "Sensitivity of US equity returns to economic policy uncertainty and investor sentiments," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    17. Tran, Dung Viet & Hassan, M. Kabir & AlTalafha, Sarah H. & Turunen-Red, Arja, 2021. "Policy uncertainty, the use of derivatives: Evidence from U.S. bank holdingcompanies (BHCs)," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Cheng, Feiyang & Wang, Chunfeng & Cui, Xin & Wu, Ji & He, Feng, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty exposure and stock price bubbles: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    19. Chen, Zilin & Da, Zhi & Huang, Dashan & Wang, Liyao, 2023. "Presidential economic approval rating and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 106-131.
    20. Wang, Yuchen & Wang, Xiaoming, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty and information intermediary: The case of short seller," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Market volatility; Economic policy uncertainty; Quality of political signals; Bullish market; Investors’ opinions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • 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:eee:jfinec:v:143:y:2022:i:3:p:1185-1208. 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/505576 .

    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.