We show that unexpected changes in the trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict US stock returns, in real time. Parameter estimates indicate that an unanticipated doubling (halving) of projected infections forecasts next-day decreases (increases) in aggregate US market value of 4 to 11 percent,...

China's markets gained 3.86% around December 4, 2012, when the Party announced anti-corruption reforms. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) with higher past entertainment and travel costs (ETC) gained more. NonSOEs gained in more liberalized provinces, especially those with high past ETC,...

The paper develops a theory for equity premium around macroeconomic announcements. Stock returns realized around pre-scheduled macroeconomic announcements, such as the employment report and the FOMC statements, account for 55% of the market equity premium during the 1961-2014 period, and...

We characterize the response of U.S., German and British stock, bond and foreign exchange markets to real-time U.S. macroeconomic news. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of high-frequency futures returns for each of the markets. We find that news surprises produce conditional mean...

I adapt the methods of Gurkaynak, Sack, and Swanson (2005) to estimate two dimensions of monetary policy during the 2009-2015 zero lower bound period in the U.S. I show that, after a suitable rotation, these two dimensions can be interpreted as "forward guidance" and "large-scale asset...

We study the relationship of non-quantitative news to bond prices. We select a set of major news events based solely on their significance as judged by historians, and examine the corresponding bond price movements. We find strong evidence that news has some influence on bond price movements,...

This paper surveys the twentieth century booms and crashes in the American stock market, focusing on a comparison of the two most similar events in the 1920s and 1990s. In both booms, claims were made that they were the consequence a %u201Cnew economy%u201D or %u201Cirrational exuberance.%u201D...

This paper investigates the effects of capital gains and dividend taxes on excess returns around announcements of dividend increases and ex-dividend days for U.S. corporations. Consistent with standard no-arbitrage conditions, we find that the ex-dividend day premium increased from 2002 to 2004...

The quot;Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003quot; (JGTRA03) contained a number of significant tax provisions, but the most noteworthy may have been the reduction in dividend tax rates. The political debate over the dividend tax reductions of 2003 took a number of surprising twists and turns....