On the Relationship Between Economic Policy Uncertainty, Geopolitical Risk and Stock Market Returns in South Korea: A Quantile Causality Analysis

In this research, we assess the influence of geopolitical risk (GPR), exchange rate (EXCH) and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on South Korea stock market. Using monthly dataset covering the period from 1997 to 2021, we utilized the novel non-parametric causality-in-quantiles test initiated by Balcilar et al. (2017) to assess these associations. This study discovered that the effect of macroeconomic shocks in South Korea is diverse across the stock market, implying that the influence of these shocks is not consistent across the stock market in South Korea. Furthermore, this study revealed that the causal influence of EPU, GPR on the stock market is visible in mean and variance. Nonetheless, the causal influence of EXCH on the stock market can only be seen in the mean, with no indication of causation in the variance. We consider that these results are significant to South Korean stock market investors for the purposes of foreign portfolio diversification and establishing investing strategies during times of economic uncertainty.