摘要
The COVID-19 has serious impacts on the economy and contaminates the equity market because its spread leads to enormous uncertainty, which can be measured by various volatilities from backward and forward information contents. We find that the pandemic-related data are significant for regressing various volatilities. Hence, we construct the index termed the Volatility of COVID-19 pandemic (VolCo) as a proxy of equity market volatility, including GJR-GARCH volatility, instantaneous volatility, VIX index and their combination. This VolCo index provides an explanation for the volatility of equity market in the period of COVID-19 spreads.