US Economic Policy Uncertainty and Co-Movements between Chinese and US Stock Markets

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of innovations in US economic policy uncertainty on the co-movements of, respectively, the Shanghai A-share, the Shenzhen A-share, the Shanghai B-share and the Shenzhen B-share market, with the US stock market. We show that it is absolute changes in the US economic policy uncertainty index that have a negative impact on the co-movements. The finding is robust to the asymmetric effects of non-policy-uncertainty shocks, to a break in the correlation structure, and to the four different Chinese stock markets investigated. Our results provide the first evidence regarding how stock market correlations are driven by policy-related uncertainty shocks in the international context.

Keywords: Economic policy uncertainty; international stock market co-movements; China; U.S

JEL Classification: G1