Impact of Geopolitical Risk on Financial Assets: Evidence from Time-Varying Parameter Var

Abstract

Geopolitical events are expected to affect all countries, asset classes, and sectors. Vietnam is a large open economy, actively participating in a vast network of free trade agreements. Therefore, political conflicts in some regions will have both positive and negative impacts on the Vietnamese economy. Aiming to explore the dependency structure between the geopolitical risk index and stock market returns, this study has evaluated quite in-depth using the TVP-VAR method combining the wavelet coherence phase between February 2012 and April 2022. The results show that geopolitical risk has a heterogeneous effect on the return of financial assets, and the market does not respond to geopolitical tensions in a uniform manner. Our research uncovers new and interesting implications for policymakers and investors involved in the Vietnamese stock market.