Stock market integration and volatility spillovers: new evidence from Asia-Pacific and European markets

PurposeThis work investigates the volatility spillovers across stock markets and the nature of such spillovers through different periods of crises and tranquility.Design/methodology/approachUsing daily stock return volatility data from June 2003 to June 2021, the generalized forecast error variance decomposition method (based on Diebold and Yilmaz, 2012 approach) is employed to measure the degree of volatility spillovers/connectedness among stock markets of 24 Asia-Pacific and 12 European Union (EU) economies.FindingsThe empirical results from static analysis suggested that about 28.1% (63.7%) of forecast error variance in return volatility for Asia-Pacific (EU) markets is due to spillovers. The evidence from dynamic analysis suggested that during mid of the global financial crisis, European debt crisis (EDC) and Covid-19, the gross volatility spillovers for Asia-Pacific (EU) was around 67% (80%), 65% (80%) and 73% (67%), respectively. The degree of net volatility transmission from Singapore (Denmark) to other Asia-Pacific (EU) markets was found to be highest.Practical implicationsThe findings have crucial implications for the investors and portfolio managers in assessment of risk and optimum allocation of assets and investment decisions.Originality/valueThis study adds to the literature on risk management by systematically examining the impact of global financial crises, EDC and Covid-19 on the market interactions by capturing the magnitude, duration and pattern of the shock-specific market volatilities for a large sample of Asian and European markets using recent and large data set.

Quantifying China's financial reach up through the pandemic: The African experience

This study seeks to quantify the financial connections between China and Africa. China's increasing investments in Africa have inevitably strengthened the relationship between China and the majority of African countries over the past decade. We find consistent effects of the Shanghai Industrial Index on African stock markets together with some evidence that these relationships strengthened following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Markov-Switching analysis affirms these connections while also identifying intensifying effects as we move from periods of low market volatility to periods of high volatility. The African stock markets included in the sample encompass Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Global supply chains in the pandemic.

We study the role of global supply chains in the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on GDP growth using a multi-sector quantitative framework implemented on 64 countries. We discipline the labor supply shock across sectors and countries using the fraction of work in the sector that can be done from home, interacted with the stringency with which countries imposed lockdown measures. One quarter of the total model-implied real GDP decline is due to transmission through global supply chains. However, "renationalization" of global supply chains does not in general make countries more resilient to pandemic-induced contractions in labor supply. This is because eliminating reliance on foreign inputs increases reliance on the domestic inputs, which are also disrupted due to nationwide lockdowns. In fact, trade can insulate a country imposing a stringent lockdown from the pandemic-shock, as its foreign inputs are less disrupted than its domestic ones. Finally, unilateral lifting of the lockdowns in the largest economies can contribute as much as 2.5% to GDP growth in some of their smaller trade partners.