Risk, Uncertainty and Monetary Policy

34 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2010 Last revised: 17 Sep 2015

See all articles by Geert Bekaert

Geert Bekaert

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance

Marie Hoerova

European Central Bank (ECB); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Marco Lo Duca

European Central Bank (ECB)

Multiple version iconThere are 6 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 2013

Abstract

The VIX, the stock market option-based implied volatility, strongly co-moves with measures of the monetary policy stance. When decomposing the VIX into two components, a proxy for risk aversion and expected stock market volatility (“uncertainty”), we find that a lax monetary policy decreases both risk aversion and uncertainty, with the former effect being stronger. The result holds in a structural vector autoregressive framework, controlling for business cycle movements and using a variety of identification schemes for the vector autoregression in general and monetary policy shocks in particular. The effect of monetary policy on risk aversion is also apparent in regressions using high frequency data.

Keywords: Monetary policy; Option implied volatility; Risk aversion; Uncertainty; Business cycle

JEL Classification: E44, E52, G12, G20, E32

Suggested Citation

Bekaert, Geert and Hoerova, Marie and Lo Duca, Marco, Risk, Uncertainty and Monetary Policy (May 2013). Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 60, Vol. 7, pp. 771-788, 2013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1561171 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1561171

Geert Bekaert

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance ( email )

NY
United States

Marie Hoerova (Contact Author)

European Central Bank (ECB) ( email )

Sonnemannstrasse 22
Frankfurt am Main, 60314
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.mariehoerova.net

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Marco Lo Duca

European Central Bank (ECB) ( email )

Sonnemannstrasse 22
Frankfurt am Main, 60314
Germany

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