Intra-BRICS Trade: A Panel Data Analysis with Structural Breaks

This article attempts to examine the recent developments that have amplified the consequences of uncertainty regarding trade between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) countries under global economic turmoil such as occurred in the 2008 financial crisis and trade wars sparked by the USA and the COVID-19 pandemic. These events severely affected intraBRICS trade and investment. For this purpose, we employed the Westerlund and Edgerton cointegration approach to check for cointegration under structural breaks and the procedure for the asymmetric Granger non-causality test to assess the causal relationship between the custom tariff and export variables of BRICS countries with regard to the panel data methodology for the 2000-2020 period using annual data. The empirical results for cointegration indicate the presence of a long-term relationship;in other words, they are seen to move together under investigation. The estimated breakpoints correspond with 2008 and the ongoing financial turmoil and with the 2018-2020 period and the rising trade disputes between USA and China. In addition, the Granger non-causality test provides enough evidence to show opposite directions (signs) for the causal links between the variables that run from tariffs to exports for BRICS countries.

Reactions of Long-run Private Consumption in Malaysia to Crises, Economic Leadership and Telecommunication Technology

We estimate the long-run reactions of private consumption in Malaysia to crises, economic leadership, information and communications technology (ICT), and other key determinants using time series econometrics. This study covers the quarterly sample from 1990:Q1 to 2020:Q4. We find that Malaysia's private consumption and its key determinants are cointegrated, demonstrating that a reliable long-run private consumption function can be estimated. We find that both economic and health crises, namely the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98, SARS and COVID-19 pandemic are likely to reduce private consumption in Malaysia. However, the long-run estimation results show that ICT and economic leadership are positively related to consumption. Therefore, policymakers should set the goal of encouraging the development of ICT infrastructure and good economic leadership in order to promote private consumption, which eventually sustains long-term economic growth and development.

Food import demand with structural breaks, economic embargo and the COVID-19 pandemic in a wealthy, highly import-dependent country

PurposeQatar, a wealthy country with an open economy has limited arable land. To meet its domestic food demand, the country heavily relies on food imports. Additionally, the over three year-long economic embargo enforced by regional neighbors and the covariate shock of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated the country's vulnerability to food insecurity and potential for structural breaks in macroeconomic data. The purpose of this paper is to examine short- and long-run determinants of Qatar's imports of aggregate food, meats, dairy and cereals in the presence of structural breaks.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use 24 years of food imports, gross domestic product (GDP) and consumer price index (CPI) data obtained from Qatar's Planning and Statistics Authority. They use the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration framework and Chambers and Pope's exact nonlinear aggregation approach.FindingsUnit root tests in the presence of structural breaks reveal a mixture of I (1) and I (0) variables for which standard cointegration techniques do not apply. The authors found evidence of a significant long-run relationship between structural changes and food imports in Qatar. Impulse response functions indicate full adjustments within three-quarters of a year in the event of an exogenous shock to imports.Research limitations/implicationsAn exogenous shock of one standard deviation on this variable would reduce Qatar's food imports by about 2.5% during the first period but recover after the third period.Originality/valueThe failure of past aggregate food demand studies to go beyond standard unit root testing creates considerable doubt about the accuracy of their elasticity estimates. The authors avoid that to provide more credible findings.

Panel unit-root tests with structural breaks

In this article, we introduce a new community-contributed command called xtbunitroot, which implements the panel-data unit-root tests developed by Karavias and Tzavalis (2014, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 76: 391-407). These tests allow for one or two structural breaks in deterministic components of the series and can be seen as panel-data counterparts of the tests by Zivot and Andrews (1992, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 10: 251-270) and Lumsdaine and Papell (1997, Review of Economics and Statistics 79: 212-218). The dates of the breaks can be known or unknown. The tests allow for intercepts and linear trends, nonnormal errors, and cross-section heteroskedasticity and dependence. They have power against homogeneous and heterogeneous alternatives and can be applied to panels with small or large time-series dimensions.

The dual shocks of the COVID-19 and the oil price collapse: A spark or a setback for the circular economy?

Is the COVID-19-induced unprecedented plunge in oil demand good news for the nascent circular economy in a material made from oil (i.e., the recycled plastics)? Since the plunge of oil prices, recycled plastics have become more expensive than virgin plastics, potentially encouraging manufacturers to shift away from the former to the latter. Our study primarily attempts to address whether recycled plastics will survive the tanked oil prices and COVID-19. To this end, we assess how the dual shocks of COVID-19 and the associated oil price collapse affect: (i) the dynamic co-movements between the international crude oil prices and the plastic and recycled plastic prices, and (ii) the responses of virgin plastics and recycled plastics in terms of diversification opportunities. Using different empirical methodologies (i.e., the event study methodology to assess changes in prices beyond expectations, the optimal hedge ratio, the portfolio weight, and copula-based approaches), the findings robustly suggest that with the rising uncertainty over COVID-19, the oil market and the performance of virgin plastic manufacturers are still significantly and positively connected, although a negative dependence with the recycled plastics is shown. With the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic, the inclusion of virgin plastics in a portfolio composed of oil only improves the reward-to-risk ratios. These results have relevant implications for risk management and policy design.