Volatility and Risk Institute | Geopolitical Risk

The obvious impact of politics on the global economy has made the topic of geopolitical risk extremely important. To what extent are political risks and economic risks related, and around what subjects? The Volatility and Risk Institute has embarked on a study of geopolitical risk and its relation to financial risks. This research seeks to understand the sources and consequences of geopolitical risks. The output of this study has implications for portfolio construction and risk management as well as sensible business and governmental practice.

When specific measures of geopolitical risk are derived either by VRI or other investigators, these will be published on VLAB to help economic decision-making.

Our latest research on Geopolitical Risk

• Berner, Richard, Stephen Cecchetti, Kim Schoenholtz, “Russian sanctions: Some questions and answers,” VoxEU, March 21, 2022
• Engle, Robert with Susana Campos-Martins. "What are the events that shake our world? Measuring and hedging global COVOL." Journal of Financial Economics 147, no. 1 (2023): 221-242.
• Engle, Robert, and Cristiano Zazzara, “Systemic Risk in the Financial System: Capital Shortfalls under Brexit, the US Elections and the Italian Referendum,” The Journal of Credit Risk (2018), 14(4):97-120.
• Tucker, Joshua; Allen, Jennifer. “Platform-Independent Experiments on Social Media.” Allen J, Tucker J A. Platform-Independent Experiments on Social Media. Science, Vol. 390, No. 6776, pp. 883–884. 2025.
• Tucker, Joshua et al. “When Does Fame Not Matter? Examining Gender Differences in Politicians’ Social Media Experiences.” Tucker J A et al. When Does Fame Not Matter? Examining Gender Differences in Politicians’ Social Media Experiences. Politics and Gender. 2025.
• Tucker, Joshua  et al. “The Effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 Election: A Deactivation Experiment.” Tucker J A et al. The Effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 Election: A Deactivation Experiment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 121, No. 21, e2321584121. 2024.
• Tucker, Joshua  et al. “Online Searches to Evaluate Misinformation Can Increase Its Perceived Veracity.” Tucker J A et al. Online Searches to Evaluate Misinformation Can Increase Its Perceived Veracity. Nature, Vol. 625, pp. 548–556. 2024.
• Tucker, Joshua with Sandra González-Bailón, David Lazer, Pablo Barberá, Meiqing Zhang, et al. Asymmetric ideological segregation in exposure to political news on Facebook. Science. July 2023, Vol 381, Issue 6656, pp. 392-398.
• Tucker, Joshua with Andrew Guess, Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barberá, et al. How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign? Science. July 2023, Vol 381, Issue 6656, pp. 398-404.
• Tucker, Joshua with Andrew Guess, Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barberá, et al. Reshares on social media amplify political news but do not detectably affect beliefs or opinions. Science. July 2023, Vol 381, Issue 6656, pp. 404-408.
• Tucker, Joshua with Nyhan, B., Settle, J., Thorson, E. et al. Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing. Nature 620, 137–144 (2023).
• Tucker, Joshua with Julia Payson, Andreu Casas, Jonathan Nagler, and Richard Bonneau. "Using Social Media Data to Reveal Patterns of Policy Engagement in State Legislatures." State Politics & Policy Quarterly 22, no. 4 (2022): 371-395.
• Tucker, Joshua with Gregory Eady, Tom Paskhalis, Jan Zilinsky, Richard Bonneau, and Jonathan Nagler. "Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior." Nature Communications 14, no. 1 (2023): 62.
• Tucker, Joshua. "Computational Social Science for Policy and Quality of Democracy: Public Opinion, Hate Speech, Misinformation, and Foreign Influence Campaigns." Handbook of Computational Social Science for Policy (2023): 381-403.
• Whitelaw, Robert and Jennifer Carpenter, “The Development of China's Stock Market and Stakes for the Global Economy", 2017, Annual Review of Financial Economics, Vol. 9, pp. 233-257.