The COVID-19 pandemic and the degree of persistence of US stock prices and bond yields.

This paper analyses the possible effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the degree of persistence of US monthly stock prices and bond yields using fractional integration techniques. The model is estimated first over the period January 1966-December 2020 and then a recursive approach is taken to examine whether or not persistence has changed during the following pandemic period (up to February 2021). We find that the unit root hypothesis cannot be rejected for stock prices while for bond yields the results differ depending on the maturity date and the specification of the error term.