COVID-19 and Stock Returns. A Panel Data Econometric Analysis on Europe, Japan and USA

The outbreak of COVID-19 has tremendous impacts on the globe. In the present paper it will be attempted to evaluate whether these impacts are evenly spread among countries regarding the stock returns. To this end many countries are classified according to their financial system and according to their geographical position. The counties examined are many Western European countries, Japan as well as the United States. The period examined is 2012Q2-2020Q3 quarterly. EViews software will be used to estimate a panel data econometric regression. Data are drawn from the Federal Bank of St. Louis and the OECD