Chasing for information during the COVID-19 panic: The role of Google search on global stock market

This paper examines the causal relationship between global stock market performance and Google search volume index (SVI) surrounding disastrous event of coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Based on 6,106 index-day observations 71 countries during period from 1 January 2020 to 29 May 2020, we find that both SVI growth in confirmed cases lower returns. Consistent with information discovery theory, when increase, retail investors for more information, improving their returns indices Finally, our further instrumental-variable analysis shows results are unlikely confounded by endogeneity.