Uncertainty Due to Infectious Diseases and Energy Market Volatility

Abstract

Motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the role of uncertainty due to infectious diseases in predicting energy market volatility using the new dataset on Equity Market Volatility-Infectious Diseases (EMV-ID). We find that the new measure of market uncertainty is a good predictor of energy market volatility in both in-sample and out-of-sample tests. These results have implications for portfolio diversification strategies, which we set aside for future research.