European Stock Markets and the ECB's Monetary Policy Surprises

This paper contributes to the literature measuring the response of stock markets to monetary policy actions. We analyze the reaction of European stock market returns to unexpected interest rate decisions by the ECB. Endogeneity between interest rate changes and stock returns is taken into account using the identification through heteroskedasticity approach. Relying on different methods to extract monetary policy shocks, we find a negative and significant relation between unexpected ECB decisions and European stock markets performance. Moreover, monetary policy decisions of the ECB are well anticipated by the market implying that the central bank successfully communicates its monetary policy