Partisan Politics and Stock Market Performance: The Effect of Expected Government Partisanship on Stock Returns in the 2002 German Federal Election
Journal
Public Choice
ISSN
0048-5829
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2008-06
Author(s)
Abstract
Partisan theory and extant evidence from parties' ideal policies suggest firms to perform better under right - than under left-leaning governments. If investors anticipate these effects of different parties holding office, changes in expected government partisanship should produce distinct patterns of stock market performance, with prices reflecting the electoral prospects of the competing parties in the pre-election time. This is the first study which investigates such anticipated effects of expected government partisanship on stock market performance in Germany. In accordance with rational partisan models of government we assume that increasing public support for the left- (right) leaning party coalition should result in decreasing (increasing) stock market performance. We analyze the effect of expected government partisanship on small firms in the 2002 German federal election employing GARCH(1,1) and TARCH(1,1) volatility models. The empirical evidence shows that overall stock performance of small German firms was positively (negatively) linked to the probability of a right-leaning (left-leaning) coalition winning the election. Moreover, we find increasing electoral prospects of a right-leaning coalition to trigger volatility increases while electoral uncertainty has a volatility reducing effect. The findings carry implications for parties' future economic policies and show possibilities for further research.
Language
English
Keywords
Government partisanship
stock market performance
elections
GARCH modeling
political information
price formation
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Springer
Publisher place
Dordrecht
Volume
135
Number
3-4
Start page
131
End page
150
Pages
20
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
222418