Uncertainty measures and inflation dynamics in selected global players: a wavelet approach.

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU), geopolitical risks (GPR), the interaction of EPU and GPR (EPGR), and inflation in the USA, Canada, the UK, Japan, and China. We employ the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) to track the evolution of model variables and the wavelet coherence (WC) to examine the co-movement and lead-lag status of the series across different frequencies and time. To strengthen the WC, we apply the multiple wavelet coherence (MWC) to determine how good the linear combination of independent variables co-moves with inflation across various time-frequency domains. The CWT reveals heterogeneous characteristics in the evolution of each variable across frequencies. Inflation across samples shows strong variance in the short-term and medium-term while the volatility fizzles out in the long-term. For the explanatory variables, a similar pattern holds for EPU except for Japan and China, where coherence is evident in the short-term. The USA's and Canada's GPR reveal strong coherence in the short- and medium-term. Also, the UK and China reflect strong coherence in the short-term but weak significance in the medium-term, while Japan's GPR reflects only strong coherence in the short-term. The EPGR shows strong variation in the short-and-medium-term in the samples except in China. The WC's phase-difference reflects bidirectional causalities and switches in signs among series across different scales and periods in the samples, while the MWC reveals the combined intensity, strength, and significance of both EPU and GPR in predicting inflation across frequency bands among the countries. Findings also show significant co-movement among series at date-stamped periods, corroborating critical global events such as the Asian financial crisis, Global financial crisis, and COVID-19 pandemic. The paper has policy implications.

Oil price and economic performance: Additional evidence from advanced economies

This study reexamines the causal relationship between oil price and economic performance (proxy by GDP returns) in seven selected advanced economies: Australia, Canada, China, the US, the UK, Japan, and Germany. We employ the homoscedastic and heteroscedastic-consistent versions of the Shi et al. (2020) bootstrap time-varying Granger causality to detect and date stamp causal changes in the relationship between oil price and GDP returns of the sample countries. Findings indicate bidirectional causality between oil price and economic performance for at least one month across all sample countries within notable global events such as the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also detects and date stamps long periods of causality running from the economic performances of Canada, China, the US, Japan, and Germany to oil prices using GDP returns as a predictor. The results indicate the weight and significance of the predictive power of the GDP growth of these economies in shaping the cyclical fluctuation of oil prices extending through pre and post COVID-19 epidemic. The findings inform some policy implications.