We investigate how corporate stock returns respond to geopolitical risk in the case of South Korea, which has experienced large and unpredictable geopolitical swings that originate from North Korea. To do so, a monthly index of geopolitical risk from North Korea (the GPRNK index) is constructed using automated keyword searches in South Korean media. The GPRNK index, designed to capture both upside and downside risk, corroborates that geopolitical risk sharply increases with the occurrence of nuclear tests, missile launches, or military confrontations, and decreases significantly around the times of summit meetings or multilateral talks. Using firm-level data, we find that heightened geopolitical risk reduces stock returns, and that the reductions in stock returns are greater especially for large firms, firms with a higher share of domestic investors, and for firms with a higher ratio of fixed assets to total assets. These results suggest that international portfolio diversification and investment irreversibility are important channels through which geopolitical risk affects stock returns.

Abstract: There is extensive debate on whether political risk is an important factor that influences financial markets and investment decision, especially in developing economies. The main aim of this thesis is to analyze the effect of political risk on stock market returns while controlling for financial risk, economic risk, interest rates and foreign exchange rates. The main methodology involves estimating the model using a regime switching model to account for changes in volatility. The sample period starts from January 2007 to August 2017. The data includes: EGX30 returns over the period, Political risk as proxied by International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) political risk index, economic risk as proxied by International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) economic risk index, financial risk as proxied by International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) financial risk index, Interest rate corridor rate offered by central bank and the Exchange rate between Egyptian pound and US Dollar. The results of the thesis show that political risk proves to be a significant driver for the market returns during high volatility regimes that reflects an unrest in the market, while its impact disappear during stable times.

Research on political risk tends to elucidate that political news affects nancial markets. Especially stock markets respond to new information regarding political decisions that may affect domestic and foreign policy. In this study, we examined the effect of good and bad political news on returns and volatility for this We employ the EGARCH model proposed by Engle and Victor (1991) as it allows good and bad news to have a different impact on volatility.Our result shows that good news has positive impact on the stock returns and also decreased the volatility.On the other hand, bad political news has negative influence on the returns (decrease the returns) and increase the volatility (positive effect)."

Little work has been done to characterize the empirical effects of political events on financial markets. In this paper we attempt to measure the impact of political risk on asset prices, focusing on the Hong Kong equity market. Hong Kong serves as the ideal case study, for two reasons: the political situation is fluid, unpredictable, and characterized by the occurrence of definitive events, and the market movements are volatile, partially reflecting the political event risk. We focus on the 1989-1993 period, during which political issues such as the question of Hong Kong s democracy after 1997, China s most-favored-nation trade status, and China s human rights development and political reform movement have all contributed to Hong Kong s stock price movements. Modeling market volatility using a jump-diffusion process finds that the volatility of the benchmark Hang Seng Index is driven by a highly persistent component, punctuated by large jumps which are highly related to political events. These results suggest that the Hong Kong market is affected by both economic and political factors which impact future profitability and investor confidence.