We develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) based on newspaper coverage frequency Several types of evidence – including human readings of 12,000 newspaper articles – indicate that our index proxies for movements in policy-related economic uncertainty Our US index spikes near tight presidential elections, Gulf Wars I and II, the 9/11 attacks, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the 2011 debt-ceiling dispute and other major battles over fiscal policy Using firm-level data, we find that policy uncertainty raises stock price volatility and reduces investment and employment in policy-sensitive sectors like defense, healthcare, and infrastructure construction At the macro level, policy uncertainty innovations foreshadow declines in investment, output, and employment in the United States and, in a panel VAR setting, for 12 major economies Extending our US index back to 1900, EPU rose dramatically in the 1930s (from late 1931) and has drifted upwards since the 1960s

/pdf/measuring-economic-policy-uncertainty-4nrg3ei76f.pdf

Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty

/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

机构投资者作为证券市场中的重要力量,越来越受到理论界和实务界的关注。论文对宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院会计学教授布赖恩-布希（Brian Bushee）的论文＂The influence of institutional investors on myopic R＆D investment behavior＂（机构投资者对企业短视研发投资行为的影响,以下简称Bushee（1998））进行评价并提出相关的建议和研究方向。

《The influence of institutional investors on myopic R＆D investment behavior》述评

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17464/w17464.pdf

Political Uncertainty and Risk Premia

Many commentators argue that uncertainty about tax, spending, monetary and regulatory policy slowed the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession. To investigate this we develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU), built on three components: the frequency of newspaper references to economic policy uncertainty, the number of federal tax code provisions set to expire, and the extent of forecaster disagreement over future inflation and government purchases. This EPU index spikes near consequential presidential elections and major events such as the Gulf wars and the 9/11 attack. It also rises steeply from 2008 onward. We then evaluate our EPU index, first on a sample of 3,500 human audited news articles, and second against other measures of policy uncertainty, with these suggesting our EPU index is a good proxy for actual economic policy uncertainty. Drilling down into our index we find that the post-2008 increase was driven mainly by tax, spending and healthcare policy uncertainty. Finally, VAR estimates show that an innovation in policy uncertainty equal to the increase from 2006 to 2011 foreshadows declines of up to 2.3% in GDP and 2.3 million in employment.

/pdf/measuring-economic-policy-uncertainty-2kvq2y0fgm.pdf

We examine the role of high-frequency traders (HFTs) in price discovery and price efficiency. Overall HFTs facilitate price efficiency by trading in the direction of permanent price changes and in the opposite direction of transitory pricing errors, both on average and on the highest volatility days. This is done through their liquidity demanding orders. In contrast, HFTs' liquidity supplying orders are adversely selected. The direction of HFTs' trading predicts price changes over short horizons measured in seconds. The direction of HFTs' trading is correlated with public information, such as macro news announcements, market-wide price movements, and limit order book imbalances.

/pdf/high-frequency-trading-and-price-discovery-x4qkdaexz6.pdf

High-Frequency Trading and Price Discovery

Using the Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2013) news-based measure to capture economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in the United States, we find that EPU positively forecasts log excess market returns. A one-standard deviation increase in EPU is associated with a 1.5% increase in forecasted 3-month abnormal returns (6.1% annualized). Furthermore, innovations in EPU earn a significant negative risk premium in the Fama French 25 size-momentum portfolios. Among the Fama French 25 portfolios formed on size and momentum returns, the portfolio with the greatest EPU beta underperforms the portfolio with the lowest EPU beta by 5.53% per annum, controlling for exposure to the Carhart four factors as well as implied and realized volatility. These findings suggest that EPU is an economically important risk factor for equities.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2291988_code1189741.pdf?abstractid=2075375&mirid=2

The Asset Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty

Using the news-based measure of Baker et al. [Baker SR, Bloom N, Davis SJ 2013 Measuring economic policy uncertainty. Working paper, Stanford University, Stanford, CA] to capture economic policy uncertainty EPU in the United States, we find that EPU positively forecasts log excess market returns. An increase of one standard deviation in EPU is associated with a 1.5% increase in forecasted three-month abnormal returns 6.1% annualized. Furthermore, innovations in EPU earn a significant negative risk premium in the Fama-French 25 size-momentum portfolios. Among the Fama-French 25 portfolios formed on size and momentum returns, the portfolio with the greatest EPU beta underperforms the portfolio with the lowest EPU beta by 5.53% per annum, controlling for exposure to the Carhart four factors as well as implied and realized volatility. These findings suggest that EPU is an economically important risk factor for equities.

This paper was accepted by Wei Jiang, finance.

The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty

http://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/229653/1/content.pdf

Stock liquidity and default risk

We examine the role of high-frequency traders (HFTs) in price discovery and price efficiency. Overall HFTs facilitate price efficiency by trading in the direction of permanent price changes and in the opposite direction of transitory pricing errors, both on average and on the highest volatility days. This is done through their liquidity demanding orders. In contrast, HFTs’ liquidity supplying orders are adversely selected. The direction of buying and selling by HFTs predicts price changes over short horizons measured in seconds. The direction of HFTs’ trading is correlated with public information, such as macro news announcements, market-wide price movements, and limit order book imbalances. (for internet appendix click: http://goo.gl/vyOEB)

/pdf/high-frequency-trading-and-price-discovery-21smbstfxy.pdf

Jonathan Brogaard

Papers

High-Frequency Trading and Price Discovery

The Asset Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty

The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty

Stock liquidity and default risk

High Frequency Trading and Price Discovery