Abstract

Governments around the world have responded to the COVID-19 outbreak with a mix of policies. The strictest responses of the New Zealand government are notable, given their abilities to contain and limit the spread of the virus. However, their impacts on stock returns remain unclear. This paper investigates the impact of three policies, namely lockdown, the stimulus package, and the travel ban, on the returns of 14 New Zealand industry stock indices. Using daily data from 1 January 2019 to 25 August 2020, evidence points to a heightened level of integration among the various industry stock indices during the early stages of the pandemic. Only lockdown has had a positive impact on aggregate stock returns, suggesting its ability to raise investors’ confidence in the overall stock market. At the industry level, the impact of the three response policies is generally positive but heterogeneous across industry stock indices. Notably, none of the three adopted policies significantly impact technology, healthcare, and real estate returns.

摘要

世界各国政府已采取多种政策应对 COVID-19 疫情。鉴于新西兰政府有能力遏制和限制病毒的传播，他们采取了最严厉的应对措施。然而，它们对股票收益的影响仍不清楚。本文研究了三项政策，即封锁、刺激方案和旅行禁令，对新西兰 14 个行业股票指数回报的影响。使用 2019 年 1 月 1 日至 2020 年 8 月 25 日的每日数据，有证据表明，在大流行的早期阶段，各种行业股票指数之间的整合程度有所提高。只有锁定对股票总回报产生了积极影响，这表明它有能力提高投资者对整体股市的信心。在行业层面，三项应对政策的影响总体上是积极的，但各行业股票指数的影响不尽相同。值得注意的是，这三项政策均未对技术、医疗保健和房地产回报产生重大影响。