Using novel measures of politics-policy uncertainty we document predictable variation in stock market returns across countries. Country characteristics and existing global and local risk factors do not account for such predictability, leading to large abnormal returns, up to 15% per annum. We...

We perform various experiments correlating past changes of social indicators about a country with future stock market returns for that country. The 169 social indicators we use, which go back as far as the year 1900, are available from the Varieties of Democracy Project. We use two sets of data...

Chinese futures markets for agricultural commodities are among the fastest growing futures markets in the world and trading behaviour in those markets is perceived as highly speculative. Therefore, we empirically investigate whether speculative activity in Chinese futures markets for...

We study the implications of forging stronger political ties with the US on the sensitivities of stock returns around the world to a global common factor - the global financial cycle. Using voting patterns at the United Nations as a measure of political ties with the US along with various...

We study the implications of forging stronger political ties with the US on the sensitivities of stock returns around the world to a global common factor - the global financial cycle. Using voting patterns at the United Nations as a measure of political ties with the US along with various...

While many studies have looked into the determinants of yields on externally issued sovereign bonds of emerging economies, analysis of domestically issued bonds has hitherto been limited, despite their growing relevance. This paper finds that the extent to which fiscal variables affect domestic...

We investigate the impact of local and global macroeconomic factors on Eurobonds and local currency issued bonds in Sub-Saharan Africa, at different points on the yield curve. Using a unique proprietary data set collected from local authorities, central banks and independent international...