A real options approach to growth opportunities and resilience aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeFacing the challenges posed by the pandemic of COVID-19, this paper aims to contribute to the resilience of businesses through the development of a real options approach (ROA) that provides alternatives and opportunities for a decision process under situations when future events and outcomes are unknown and not capable of being known from current information.Design/methodology/approachThis paper involves a stochastic modelling process in generating a set of absolute option values, using available data and scenarios from the COVID-19 pandemic event. The modelling and simulations using ROA suggest how strategic portfolios resolve the growing problem during the endemic to all but in the most isolated societies.FindingsThis study finds the emergent correlation between circuit breakers and lockdowns, which have brought about a "distorted gravity” effect (inverse growth of global businesses and trades). However, "time-to-build” real options (i.e. deferral, expand, switch and compound exchange) start to function in the adaptive-transformative capabilities for growth opportunities of both government and corporate sectors. Significantly, some sectors grow faster than others while the compound exchange remains primarily challenging. Clearly, the government and corporate sectors are entangled, inevitably, the decoherence allows for the former to change uncertainty in the latter;therefore, government sector options change option values in the corporate sector.Originality/valueThe ROA by empirically focusing on both government and corporate sectors demonstrates under conditions of uncertainty how options in decision-making generate opportunities that hitherto have not been recognised and exercised upon by research in the immediate context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, the ROA provides an insightful concatenation (capability–behaviour approach) that drives resilience.

Premium for Coverage for Excess COVID-19 Infections

Many of the sectors in the economy were negatively affected, particularly insurance sector with the appearance of COVID-19. With the support of governments or reinsurers through the payment of a premium, insurance companies could receive a contingent resource in the face of excess infections caused by the pandemic. This paper calculates the premium to cover the excess affected population with a financial options model with a diffusion process without and with Poisson jumps and the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) epidemiological model (this estimation is original). The obtained system is approximated with the Monte Carlo simulation method. The results show that there are important differences in the option premiums when Poisson jumps are included. Lastly, it is highlighted that the premium depends on the behavior trajectory of contagions and strike contagion value (K). This work has a limitation when applied to very particular cases, but a calibration of the parameters with more real information could be done in future research. © 2023 Russell Sage Foundation. Lewis-McCoy, R. L'Heureux, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, and Nadirah Farah Foley. 2023.

Emergency Blended Synchronous Learning Model during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted various aspects of our lives causing economic, social and psychological challenges all around the world. A sector that immediately responded to this unprecedented change was education, which migrated to online platforms. This study explored the attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of a group of students participating in an emergency blended synchronous learning model during the pandemic in Northern Cyprus. The study adopted a qualitative study by surveying a group of 68 undergraduate students' experiences through analysing their reflective accounts regarding the instructional mode of education that they received over the fall academic semester in 2020. The results of the study indicated that the new mode of instruction adopted in the context of the study not only presented technological, social, and psychological challenges for the students but also provided them with various learning opportunities and options during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of the study offer some implications for the use of technology in education in general and language teaching in particular. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Africa Education Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Modern pandemic crises and R&D investment

This study investigates the impact of crises caused by pandemics on firms' R&D investments. We explore these associations by utilizing a comprehensive cross-country sample of 261,959 firm-year observations collected from 39 countries during five modern health crises (SARS in 2003, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2012, and Zika in 2016). The results indicate that pandemics have a positive and significant impact on R&D investment. Furthermore, we show that private firms in civil-law countries were more likely to adopt conservative financial policies than those in common-law countries. We conclude that the difference between the legal origins of private firms influences the impact on R&D investment. Moreover, it promotes conservative policies to reduce private firms' R&D investment in countries with civil law.

Price leadership in China's oil futures market: take two

This study is the first to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the price discovery and market liquidity aspects of China's crude oil futures market compared to WTI and Brent. With intraday-day data consolidated into 1-second intervals and three measures of price discovery, we find that China's crude oil futures market reports encouraging signs in terms of price discovery and efficiency, also showing great resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. The market has obtained a dominant role in price discovery relative to WTI and Brent during its day trading hours, and has almost caught up with Brent in terms of market liquidity. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Patients Lights and Shadows in the Current Landscape.

Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) presents a known risk to critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2; quantifying the global burden of IPA in SARS-CoV-2 is extremely challenging. The true incidence of COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA) and the impact on mortality is difficult to define because of indiscriminate clinical signs, low culture sensitivity and specificity and variability in clinical practice between centers. While positive cultures of upper airway samples are considered indicative for the diagnosis of probable CAPA, conventional microscopic examination and qualitative culture of respiratory tract samples have quite low sensitivity and specificity. Thus, the diagnosis should be confirmed with serum and BAL GM test or positive BAL culture to mitigate the risk of overdiagnosis and over-treatment. Bronchoscopy has a limited role in these patients and should only be considered when diagnosis confirmation would significantly change clinical management. Varying diagnostic performance, availability, and time-to-results turnaround time are important limitations of currently approved biomarkers and molecular assays for the diagnosis of IA. The use of CT scans for diagnostic purposes is controversial due to practical concerns and the complex character of lesions presented in SARS-CoV-2 patients. The key objective of management is to improve survival by avoiding misdiagnosis and by initiating early, targeted antifungal treatment. The main factors that should be considered upon selection of treatment options include the severity of the infection, concomitant renal or hepatic injury, possible drug interactions, requirement for therapeutic drug monitoring, and cost of therapy. The optimal duration of antifungal therapy for CAPA is still under debate.

Pricing and Risk Management of Multi-Assets Financial Instruments to Natural Disasters

COVID-19 not only led to a significant loss of human lives but also brought indelible economic loss. To transfer the natural disaster risk, a variety of financial instruments written on the environmental phenomena have been developed and issued by financial institutions. The gamma distribution family is characterized by sparsity, heavy tail, and high skewness;thus, it has been widely used to model the data of environmental phenomena. To exploit the versatility of the gamma distribution, Vitiello and Poon propose the pricing model for financial instruments under the general equilibrium risk neutral valuation relationship (RNVR) framework. Though the VP model is capable of pricing financial instruments, their underlying is limited to a single asset. However, the vast majority of firms face various risks and prefer more efficient and cheaper ways to hedge these risks and maintain financial stability. To price multiple-asset financial instruments, this study extends the single-asset VP model to a multi-asset VP model (MVP) under the RNVR framework. Based on the MVP model, this study demonstrates two applications to price basket options and spread options. To manage the pricing of financial instruments that do not have closed-form pricing formulas, this study develops the Monte Carlo simulation method within the MVP model framework. For risk management, this study provides hedge ratios for market practitioners to manage their risk exposures. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Discovery of Vaccine Unfolds a New Marathon to Conquer: Strategic Options for Covid Captive India

The world is being threatened by severe humanitarian crisis due to COVID Pandemic. The human civilisation is desperately searching for vaccine or antibiotics which will act as the saviour of mankind. But the discovery of vaccine is not the end of the story but it would open up the curtain for a new set of challenges particularly in the developing countries like India. The country needs to develop strategies how best and how fast the vaccine could be administered among the elephantine population. This paper has attempted to deliberate strategic options to eradicate the COVID Captive India effectively and efficiently.Copyright © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

Macroeconomic conditions and investment stimuli

Based on a calibrated real options model, this paper examines a tax-subsidy program offered by a government to stimulate corporate investment under business cycles. We derive and discuss optimal incentive policies for different states of the economy. We find that it is optimal for the government to offer a combination of tax cuts and lump-sum subsidy for stimulating levered firms' investment under business cycles. Furthermore, the government should adopt counter-cyclical tax-subsidy policy, namely a higher (lower) tax cuts and a larger (smaller) lump-sum subsidy during recessions (booms). In particular, we provide a possible explanation why many governments around the world have reduced and even implemented negative interest rates to stimulate the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Finally, our conclusions also predict that the break-even tax-subsidy program always provides effective investment stimulus under business cycles. © 2023 Elsevier Inc.

Knowledge Discovery to Support WTI Crude Oil Price Risk Management

The high volatility of commodity prices and various problems that the energy sector has to deal with in the era of COVID-19 have significantly increased the risk of oil price changes. These changes are of the main concern of companies for which oil is the main input in the production process, and therefore oil price determines the production costs. The main goal of this paper is to discover decision rules for a buyer of American WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil call options. The presented research uses factors characterizing the option price, such as implied volatility and option sensitivity factors (delta, gamma, vega, and theta, known as "Greeks”). The performed analysis covers the years 2008–2022 and options with an exercise period up to three months. The decision rules are discovered using association analysis and are evaluated in terms of the three investment efficiency indicators: total payoff, average payoff, and return on investment. The results show the existence of certain ranges of the analyzed parameters for which the mentioned efficiency indicators reached particularly high values. The relationships discovered and recorded in the form of decision rules can be effectively used or adapted by practitioners to support their decisions in oil price risk management.

Decreasing the options' number in multiple choice questions in the assessment of senior medical students and its effect on exam psychometrics and distractors' function.

BACKGROUND: Studies that have investigated the effect options' number in MCQ tests used in the assessments of senior medical students are scarce. This study aims to compare exam psychometrics between three- and five-option MCQ tests in final-year assessments. METHODS: A cluster randomized study was applied. Participants were classified into three groups, according to their academic levels. Students in each of those levels were randomized into either the three- or five-option test groups. RESULTS: Mean time to finish the five-option test was 45 min, versus 32 min for the three-option group. Cronbach's alpha was 0.89 for the three-option group, versus 0.81 for the five-options, p-value = 0.19. The mean difficulty index for the three-option group was 0.75, compared to 0.73 for the five-option group, p-value = 0.57. The mean discriminating index was 0.53 for the three-option group, and 0.45 for the five-options, p-value = 0.07. The frequency of non-functioning distractors was higher in the five-option test, 111 (56%), versus 39 (39%) in the three-options, with p-value < 0.01. CONCLUSIONS: This study has shown that three-option MCQs are comparable to five-option MCQs, in terms of exam psychometrics. Three-option MCQs are superior to five-option tests regarding distractors' effectiveness and saving administrative time.

Quantile Dependence between Crude Oil Returns and Implied Volatility: Evidence from Parametric and Nonparametric Tests

We examine the daily dependence and directional predictability between the returns of crude oil and the Crude Oil Volatility Index (OVX). Unlike previous studies, we apply a battery of quantile-based techniques, namely the quantile unit root test, the causality-in-quantiles test, and the cross-quantilogram approach. Our main results show evidence of significant bi-directional predictability that is quantile-dependent and asymmetric. A significant positive Granger causality runs from oil (OVX) returns to OVX (oil) returns when both series are in similar lower (upper) quantiles, as well as in opposite quantiles. The Granger causality from OVX returns to oil returns is only significant during periods of high volatility, although it is not always positive. The findings imply that the forward-looking estimate of oil volatility, reflecting the sentiment of oil market participants, should be considered when studying price variations in the oil market, and that crude oil returns can be used to predict oil implied volatility during bearish market conditions. Therefore, the findings have implications regarding predictability under various conditions for oil market participants.

From Monitoring the Commitment to Inoculations among Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic to Overcoming Communication Risks in the Process of Vaccination

Introduction: The epidemic process of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can be managed only through vaccination. Yet, despite the availability of effective immunobiological preparations, health administrators often face a negative attitude of the population, including healthcare professionals, to vaccination. Objective: To establish commitment of workers of health facilities to vaccination against COVID–19 during different periods of the pandemic using modern online resources and to justify the need to develop effective practices of dealing with communicative risks in the course of vaccination. Materials and methods: The study was conducted in several successive stages corresponding to five waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Russian Federation by means of an online survey of 5,304 health workers using Google Forms. We applied sociological and statistical methods of research. Results: We observed that the attitude to vaccination against COVID-19 among the employees of health institutions was ambiguous and changed over time demonstrating a gradual increase in adherence to inoculations. The potential risk group with a negative attitude towards vaccination included female nurses and workers of non-medical specialties with less than five years of work experience. An insufficient level of commitment to coronavirus vaccination among the personnel of health facilities has been also noted in other countries, which is a serious problem on a global scale hindering the victory over this novel infection. Conclusion: We assessed commitment to inoculations against COVID-19 among medical workers using modern online resources and found its inadequate level necessitating effective interventions aimed at awareness raising and training in modern practices of effective communications. © 2023, Federal Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology. All rights reserved.

Dynamics of Volatility Spillover and Connectedness Among Sectors of Indian Stock Market

This paper investigates the dynamic volatility spillover and connectedness among different sectors of the Indian stock market during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study considers 18 sectors listed on the National Stock Exchange. Diebold-Yilmaz Volatility spillover model and Baruník and Křehlík frequency connectedness methodology are used to investigate the time varying dynamics of the spillover during the turbulence period. Daily market prices of 18 sectors, from March 15, 2019, to February 28, 2022, are considered for the present study. The results reveal that the spillover from infra, commodities, services, MNC, oil and gas, financial services, private bank, energy, and PSE is more, and this clearly indicates that during the pandemic, these sectors mostly had a spillover effect on other sectors.

WTI Crude Oil Options Market Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused turbulence in many areas of the global economy. It also contributed to an increase in volatility on the energy commodities market. This spilled over into the derivatives market, particularly the crude oil futures market. The aim of the article is to compare the costs and effectiveness of using options on WTI oil from before and after the pandemic. The analyzes took into account the value of option premiums and final results obtained by buyers of call options from March 1, 2018 to April 14, 2022. The results showed that buyers of call options during the pandemic, despite paying much higher option premiums, experienced significantly higher payouts and rates of return. They were the highest for options with the longest expiry periods of 21-30 days. Research also showed that during the pandemic, options with strike prices set at a level higher than the price of oil on the contract date had particularly high rates of return, while the highest payout values were achieved by buyers of call options with low strike prices.

Beware of the Unexpected: Acute Coronary Thrombosis Following the Mildly Symptomatic COVID-19 Infection and Two Different Therapeutic Options

COVID-19 infection was declared a pandemic in March 2020 and is responsible for high morbidity and mortality around the globe. Although the most common clinical presentation is respiratory, cardiac complications are common and create new challenges for healthcare. We discuss two mildly symptomatic outpatients with COVID-19 presenting with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and high coronary thrombus burden without atherosclerotic plaque. Our report describes two different therapeutic approaches that illustrate the challenges encountered in the management of disseminated coronary thrombosis in patients with STEMI and COVID-19. Clinicians should be aware of the high pro-coagulant state caused by COVID-19, even in mildly symptomatic outpatients, and aggressive pharmacological therapy may be an effective alternative treatment option to percutaneous coronary intervention.Copyright © 2023, CKS.

An Overview of Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Global Havoc

The world has been pushed to the edge of a precipice commonly been addressed to as Coronavirus S (SARS-CoV2), one of the world's most widespread viral pandemic in recent times. Many studies are underway and investigating the new role of existing drugs, exploring the safety and efficacy of recently developed vaccines, after getting detailed insights into the behavioural characteristics of SARS-CoV2. Presently supportive and symptomatic treatment, along with practices like disease surveil-lance, contact tracing, and early diagnosis may help control the future of COVID-19 outbreaks. An ef-fort has been made to compile the information about coronavirus;its clinical manifestations, differential diagnosis, preventive aspects, and therapeutic options as a review.Copyright © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers.

The CFA Franc Zone: Economic Development and the Post-Covid Recovery

This book provides an empirical analysis of economic and political structures impacting the CFA franc zone. Concise and practical chapters explore the history of the CFA franc zone, challenges to development, geopolitical issues, the importance of flexible exchanges rates, growth trends, and the impact of the Covid crisis. Policy reform is examined to detail economic approaches that could reduce poverty and increase the quality of life within the area. This book aims to present a macroeconomic and exchange rate framework to promote development and post-Covid recovery within the CFA franc zone. It will be of interest to students, researchers, and policymakers involved in African economics, the political economy, and development economics. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Analyzing the impact of stock options on talent retention and knowledge product generativity at knowledge intensive firms

Purpose: Since the subject matters of human resources activities on knowledge intensive firms have been changed by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, this study aims to analyze the impact of stock options on talent retention (knowledge worker retention) and knowledge productivity (innovation) in terms of patents, which directly affect the financial performance of knowledge intensive firms. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on agency and contingency theory to design the causality model, this study analyzes the data obtained from 227 publicly traded knowledge intensive firms in information technology (IT) and healthcare sectors. Panel data analysis is used to determine the long run causal relationship between firm innovation, knowledge worker retention and financial performance, in addition to ANOVA for evaluating firm size as a lurking variable on the effect of stock options. Findings: The results of this study demonstrate that, when firm size is taken into account, (1) stock options significantly affect knowledge worker retention and firms' financial performance, and this impact is stronger in a during-pandemic situation than in a pre-pandemic situation (2) firm innovation significantly affects firms' financial performance and this impact is stronger in a during-pandemic situation than in a pre-pandemic situation;(3) knowledge worker retention doesn't have a significant impact on firm innovation and firms' financial performance. Moreover, random effect regression analysis for long-term relationships also depicts the same results: knowledge worker retention has non-significant impact on firm innovation and financial performance, but firm innovation significantly affects financial performance. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, the authors are the first to compare the effects of stock options, knowledge worker retention and firm innovation in both pre- and during-pandemic scenarios where firm size is taken into consideration. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The COVID-19 risk in the cross-section of equity options.

We use the implied volatility slope measures derived from US stock options to examine the impact of COVID-19 risk on the options market. The severity of COVID-19 is measured by the number of new confirmed cases. We find that equity options that are most sensitive to COVID-19 generate a more positive IV slope than less COVID-19-sensitive equity options. Moreover, this measure is more positive and significant during the lockdown period. Our findings suggest that the hedging cost of downside tail risk is more expensive during the high-uncertainty period, the time when COVID-19 is more intensive.