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Market reactions to the arrival and containment of Covid-19: an event study

We study the short-term market reactions of US and European stocks during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Employing an event study, we document that stocks react significantly negative to the announcement of the first death in a given country. While our results suggest that the announcements of country-specific fiscal policy measures negatively affect stock returns, monetary policy measures have the potential to calm markets. These reactions are either intensified or lessened by firm-specific characteristics such as tangible assets, liquidity, and institutional holdings.

Lead investigator:

Thomas Heyden

Affiliation:

Justus Liebig University

Primary topic:

Business, big & small

Secondary topic:

Prices & interest rates

Region of data collection:

North America

Status of data collection

Complete

Type of data being collected:

From private company

Unit of real-time data collection

Firms

Start date

1/2018

End date

3/2020

Frequency

Daily

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