The spillover effects of economic policy uncertainty on financial markets: a time-varying analysis

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to examine the spillover effects of trans-Atlantic macroeconomic uncertainties on the local stock market returns in the USA and eight selected European countries, namely, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Sweden and the UK, during the 2000-2019 period. Design/methodology/approach This paper applies the dynamic conditional correlation multivariate GARCH model (i.e. multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model or DCC MGARCH) to examine the potential existence of the spillover from the uncertainty of the USA to EU stock markets and vice versa. To capture different dynamic relationships between multiple time-series variables following different regimes, this paper applies the Markov switching model to the stock returns of both the USA and the eight major stock markets. Findings The increases in US uncertainty have significant negative impacts on all EU stock returns, whereas only the increases in the uncertainties of Spain, Ireland, Sweden and the UK have significant negative impacts on US stock returns. Notably, the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in the USA has a dynamic effect on the European stock markets. In a bear market (State 1), the increases in the EPU of the USA and EU have significant negative impacts on EU stock returns in most cases. However, only the increase in US EPU has significant negative impacts on EU stock returns in bull markets (State 2). Reciprocally, the increases in the EU EPUs of Germany, Spain and the UK have significant impacts on US stock returns in bear market. Originality/value The observations challenge the conventional wisdom according to which only larger economies can lead the smaller counterparts. The findings also highlight the stronger dependence of the US stock market on international macroeconomic uncertainty.