Natchimuthu Natchimuthu

The 2016 Brexit referendum created potential turmoil in financial markets. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the Brexit referendum on the return and volatility spillover between the EU, the UK, and the USA stock markets and the Indian stock market during the pre- and post-Brexit referendum period. The VAR and bivariate GARCH BEKK models were employed. The study results suggest that before the Brexit referendum, Indian stock market returns made no significant return spillover on the other markets. On the contrary, following the referendum, Indian stock returns significantly spilled over to France, Germany, the UK, and the USA stock market returns. The study results also identified a substantial increase in the bidirectional volatility spillover between India-France, India-UK, and India-USA during the post-Brexit referendum period. Therefore, the investors’ opportunity to invest simultaneously in India, UK, EU, and US stock markets for portfolio diversification is limited. India was affected mainly by its own past shocks before the Brexit referendum. However, after the Brexit referendum, Indian markets are getting more and more integrated with other markets. In order to reap the diversification benefits, a prudent investment strategy will need to be developed in the future, especially during times of economic and political uncertainty and market crisis.

Britain’s decision to exit the EU lead to disruptions in global markets. This study investigates the change in the return and volatility spillover pattern due to the repercussions of the Brexit vote between the US, France, the UK, Germany, and India’s 10-year government bond yields by applying the VAR and GARCH-BEKK models. The findings demonstrate a substantial rise in the return spillover to India and USA 10-year government bond yields following the Brexit vote compared to the pre-Brexit vote era. In addition, the results showed evidence of unidirectional volatility spillover from India to France, bidirectional volatility spillover between the USA and India, and unidirectional volatility spillover from the UK to India 10-year government bond market post-Brexit vote. However, there was no interconnection between these markets before the Brexit vote. Therefore, the Brexit vote did affect and significantly increased the linkage between the US, France, the UK, and India’s 10-year government bond market. The increase in correlation in India-US, India-UK, and India-France’s 10-year government bond markets will help predict and have an important implication for hedgers, decision-makers, and portfolio managers if similar political events occur in the future.