ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the directional causal relationship and information transmission among the returns of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent, major cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins by drawing on daily data from July 2019 to July 2020. Applying effective transfer entropy, a non-parametric statistic, the results show that the direction of the causal relationship and the nature of information spillovers changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. More precisely, our findings reveal that WTI and Brent are leading the prices of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Conversely, Bitcoin futures and stablecoins (TrueUSD and USD Coin) are leading WTI and Brent prices. In addition, the stablecoin Tether became a leader against Brent prices after the pandemic, although it is still following WTI prices. Moreover, Ethereum and USD coin preserved their position as leaders against Brent prices. Interestingly, our results also reveal that Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple preserved their position as leaders of WTI prices. The change in the nature of directional causality and the spillover effect after the COVID-19 crisis provide valuable information for practitioners, investors, and policymakers on how the ongoing pandemic influences the connection and network correlation among the energy, cryptocurrency, and stablecoin markets. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
ABSTRACT
The hospitality sector is an important component of the overall economic activities of a nation. It thus helps to stabilize the socio-economic activities of individuals and government. Therefore, it is an important mechanism used by government to improve foreign exchange, generate revenues and create employments. Thus, governments look-forward to the hospitality and tourism industry to stimulate its economic activities to enhance standard of living of her citizens. This study, therefore, examines the impact of the novel circular coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on hospitality and event centre with emphasis on hotels in Bida Niger State Nigeria. The study examines customers' patronage during the covid-19 pandemic as the principal objective of the study. The study is anchored on the Maslow's theory based on the fact that human needs differ;and hence, there is a need for service providers like hotelier to personalise customers' needs based on their expectations. The study, therefore, found that customer patronage during the COVID-19 pandemic was very low and the hotel sector in Bida is operating at zero levels. Thus, some hotels gave temporary leave to their employees since their services are not needed at the moment. Furthermore, the study also found that the revenue generation during this era is at the ebb level. Although, they are not able to attract customers during this period, taxes being collected by the state and local government agencies have become a burden to the sector. The study, adopted a qualitative approach using interview techniques for the collection of data. The interview mainly focused on customer patronage, customer leave, and revenue generation emphasizing on some hotel managers and owners in Bida town. The study concludes with suggestions that will help the hospitality and tourism industry.