Frequency connectedness and cross-quantile dependence among medicare, medicine prices and health-tech equity

We investigate the dynamic connectedness among health-tech equity and medicine prices (producer and consumer) and Medicare cost indices for the US market. In doing so, we apply Cross-Quantilogram Dynamic Connectedness based on Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP-VAR) approaches to analyse historical high-frequency time-series data. TVP-VAR results show that health-tech equity is the highest volatility transmitter while Medicare price is the highest volatility receiver. We also find medicine producer price is the net volatility contributor while the retail price of medicine is the net volatility receiver. The Cross-Quantilogram analysis confirms a strong bivariate quantile dependence between respective markets at a higher quantile of each market. Cross-quantilogram demonstrates a higher level of connectedness among the markets when considering medium and long memory. We observe health-tech equity turned to be a profound volatility contributor, while medicine price (both producer and retail prices) and Medicare appeared to net volatility receiver during the time of COVID19 Pandemic. The financial performance of health-tech equity returns elevates the price volatility of medicine and eventually Medicare cost, which imply that equity return should be incorporated forming medicine prices. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

COVID-19 induced lockdown effect on wheat supply chain and prices in India - Insights from state interventions led resilience.

COVID-19 incidence in India, impacted the food market, wheat in particular, as the crop harvest coincided with the lockdown disrupting the supply chain and prices posing a few researchable issues - the lockdown effect on wheat supply chain; how the state intervention bolstered the sector to restore; the insights the government interventions offer, etc. The study, using the interrupted time series analysis, investigated the disruption in wheat supply chain, and captured the impact of lockdown on wheat prices. Despite relaxation allowed to agricultural-related activities, lack of transport and labour shortage were reported. Nevertheless, the country registered a record wheat procurement of 38.99 million tonnes. Though the prices spiked post-lockdown, there was no evidence of structural-break and persisting volatility. The findings affirm that supply chain disruption is the main driver for the observed price changes and government interventions like staggered procurement and logistics support resulted in restoration of the wheat economy. The relief measures, infrastructure and its efficient usage, and easing restrictions rendered resilience to wheat supply chain against the COVID-19 shocks. The experience of coordinated efforts of the state machinery and the cooperative farm communities offers confidence about the national capacities to manage disasters of even greater scale in agriculture.