Impact of COVID-19 and economic policy uncertainty on China's stock market returns: evidence from quantile-on-quantile and causality-in-quantiles approaches.

COVID-19 unexpectedly ensnared the entire world and wreaked havoc on global economic and financial systems. The stock market is sensitive to black swan events, and the COVID-19 disaster was no exception. Against this backdrop, this study explores the impact of COVID-19 and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on Chinese stock markets' returns for the period spanning January 23, 2020 to August 04, 2021. The outcomes of the novel quantile-on-quantile regression analysis revealed that both COVID-19 and EPU had a significant negative impact on both Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market returns, while COVID-19 aggravated the level of economic uncertainty in both financial markets. The quantile causality approach of Troster et al. (2018) validates our main estimations. We conclude that COVID-19 and a high level of EPU enervated the returns of China's leading stock markets. Our study provides key insights to policymakers and market participants to determine the behavior of China's stock market returns vis-à-vis COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic and beyond. Specifically, our findings apprise portfolio investors to augment their portfolio diversification fronts.

Psychological, social and economic impact of COVID 19 on the working population of India: Exploratory factor analysis approach.

The purpose of this study is to unravel the effects of COVID-19 on the psychological, social, and economic well-being of the working population of India. To achieve the objectives of the study, an online survey was conducted, focusing on aspects like psycho-social well-being, safety, financial stability, and work from home implications. We have used exploratory factor analysis (EFA), t-test, and analysis of variance technique to find the underlying factors. The findings suggest that the female population of the society is more vulnerable to social-psychological and organizational stress. In terms of financial stability, private employees are more unstable as compared to government employees. Based on the standard of living, people of type 1 cities are more affected by the COVID-19 outbreak compared to the people of type 2 and type 3 cities. Hence, by and large, female employees, employees working in the private sector, and employees residing in type 1 cities are more likely to have the behavioral manifestation of negative psychological states caused by this pandemic. The findings will assist policymakers in understanding and devising appropriate policies considering the psycho-social and work-related economic issues faced by the working population of India during the COVID- 19 pandemic.