COVID-19 Pandemic and Stock Market Response: A Culture Effect

Abstract

National culture has been shown to impact the way investors, firm managers, and markets in their entirety respond to different situations and events. The psychology literature, however, notes that in terms of crisis, old behaviors and norms can get replaced by new norms as groups adjust to the new situation. To date, no one has looked at the impact of culture on market responses to disasters. This paper is the first to address the effect of national culture on stock market responses to a global health disaster. We find larger declines and greater volatilities for stock markets in countries with higher uncertainty avoidance, lower individualism, and greater experience with disease-causing pathogens during the first three weeks after the confirmation of the first COVID-19 case within a country. Our results are robust after controlling for a number of variables, including investor fear, cumulative infected cases, the stringency of government response policies, the 2003 SARS experience, the level of democracy, political corruption, and trade openness.

Keywords: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Pandemic, Culture, Disaster, Abnormal Return, Volatility

JEL Classification: G12, G15, G41