This paper investigates the behavior of crude oil prices, government bonds and stock market indices around outbreaks of severe international crises and wars. Using a constant-mean-return event study, we show that these events are associated with positive and significant abnormal returns on oil...

This study analyzes the dynamic interactions between changes in economic policy uncertainty and the fluctuations in cost of credit protection. We find that the differenced iTraxx and CDX indices are Granger-caused by variations in the political environment. Within a Vector Autoregressive...

This paper examines the relationship between the level of democratization and stock index returns in a sample of 74 countries. Compared with democracies, autocratic states are characterized by lower returns despite exhibiting higher return volatility. Even though this higher volatility can be...

Motivated by the recent gold price boom, this paper investigates whether rapidly growing investment activities have caused a new asset price bubble. Drawing on gold's role as dollar hedge, inflation hedge, portfolio diversifier, and safe haven, we calculate fundamentally justified returns,...