Political uncertainty leads to greater information asymmetry among contracting parties to the firm, resulting in an increased demand for accounting conservatism. Exploiting the exogenous variation in political uncertainty induced by the U.S. gubernatorial election cycle over the period...

We show that global political uncertainty, measured by the U.S. election cycle, on average, leads to a fall in equity returns in fifty non-U.S. countries. At the same time, market volatilities rise, local currencies depreciate, and sovereign bond returns increase. The effect of global political...