Death and contagious infectious diseases: Impact of the COVID-19 virus on stock market returns

Abstract This study investigates whether contagious infectious diseases affect stock market outcomes. As a natural experiment, we use panel data regression analysis to measure the effect of the COVID-19 virus, which is a contagious infectious disease, on the Chinese stock market. The findings indicate that both the daily growth in total confirmed cases and in total cases of death caused by COVID-19 have significant negative effects on stock returns across all companies.

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