The role of economic policy uncertainty in the US entrepreneurship-unemployment nexus

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E Payne

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the literature on the entrepreneurship-unemployment nexus to include the role of economic policy uncertainty in the causal dynamics. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilizes the Toda-Yamamoto causality tests of a vector autoregressive (VAR) model to infer the causal dynamics between the self-employment rate (SER), the unemployment rate (UR), industrial production (IP), and the economic policy uncertainty index (EPUI) in the case of the USA. In addition to the examination of the causal dynamics, generalize impulse response analysis is undertaken to examine the role of unexpected shocks to the current and future behavior of the variables specified in the VAR model. Findings – The results reveal unidirectional causality from the SER, IP, and the EPUI to the UR. An increase in the SER and IP lowers the UR while an increase in the EPUI raises the UR. The findings also show unidirectional causality from the EPUI to IP in which an increase in the EPUI reduces IP. Research limitations/implications – Due to data availability for higher frequency monthly data, the self-employment data limits the analysis to 2000:1 to 2014:11. Practical implications – The results reiterate the importance of minimizing economic policy uncertainty as a means to facilitate effective planning by entrepreneurs and economic agents. Moreover, policies designed to encourage entrepreneurship (self-employment) aids in the reduction of unemployment. Social implications – Policies designed to encourage entrepreneurship also facilitate the reduction in the UR. Also, greater policy transparency and stability has a positive impact on entrepreneurial activities. Originality/value – This is the first study to incorporate the role of economic policy uncertainty in the examination of the causal dynamics between entrepreneurship and unemployment.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudeshna Ghosh

Purpose This paper aims to consider the role of geopolitical risk in explaining tourism demand in India, a major tourist destination of the Asian region. Furthermore, the study also considers how in addition to geopolitical risk, economic policy uncertainty, economic growth, exchange rate, inflation and trade openness impact tourism demand. Design/methodology/approach The Bayer and Hanck (2013) method of cointegration is applied to explore the relationship between geopolitical risk and tourism demand. Furthermore, the study has also used the auto distributed lag model to determine whether there is a long-run cointegrating association between tourism demand, geopolitical risk, economic policy uncertainty, economic growth, exchange rate and trade openness. Finally, the vector error correction model confirms the direction of causality across the set of the major variables. Findings This paper finds that geopolitical risk adversely impacts inbound international travel to India. This study also obtains the consistency of the results across different estimation techniques controlling for important macro variables. The Granger causality test confirms the unidirectional causality from geopolitical risk to tourism and further from economic uncertainty to tourism. The findings from the study confirm that geopolitical risks have long-term repercussions on the tourism sector in India. The results indicate that there is an urgent need to develop a pre-crisis management plan to protect the aura of Indian tourism. The tourism business houses should develop skilful marketing strategies in the post-crisis to boost the confidence of the tourists. Research limitations/implications This paper provides valuable practical implications to tourism business houses. The tourism business houses can explore geopolitical risk measure and economic policy uncertainty measure to analyse the demand for international tourism in India. Further, the major stakeholders can establish platforms to help tourists to overcome the fear associated with geopolitical risk. Originality/value This study is the first of its kind to explore the geopolitical risks and their long-run consequences in the context of tourism in India. The study puts emphasis on the role of national policy to maintain peace otherwise it would be detrimental to tourism.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
William Mbanyele

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the role of board networks in promoting stock liquidity when there is high economic policy uncertainty using a sample of Brazilian firms from 2002 to 2015.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs the ordinary least squares estimation method with standard errors clustered at the firm level for preliminary analysis, besides the study employs the two-step GMM dynamic estimation method to deal with potential endogeneity issues.FindingsFirst, the findings show that economic policy uncertainty disproportionately contributes to stock illiquidity and the impact is mainly prominent for high risky companies, small firms and firms in competitive industries. Second, the author provides evidence that board networks promote stock liquidity more via the information channel when economic policy uncertainty is very high.Practical implicationsGiven the adverse effects of economic policy uncertainty on stock liquidity, governments need to swiftly communicate and implement policies that affect the capital market to avoid the drying up of liquidity, which is exacerbated by communication or implementation lags. Also, there is a need for the regulators to continuously encourage the inclusion of independent directors in boards, which helps to increase board monitoring capacity and the firms' ability to respond to changes in the external environment.Originality/valueUnlike other studies that focus on the adverse effects of economic policy uncertainty on firm outcomes, the novel contribution is that the author uncovers the role of board networks in mitigating the negative effects of economic policy uncertainty on stock liquidity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135481662098119
Author(s):  
James E Payne ◽  
Nicholas Apergis

This research note extends the literature on the role of economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risk on US citizens overseas air travel through the examination of the forecast error variance decomposition of total overseas air travel and by regional destination. Our empirical findings indicate that across regional destinations, US economic policy uncertainty explains more of the forecast error variance of US overseas air travel, followed by geopolitical risk with global economic policy uncertainty explaining a much smaller percentage of the forecast error variance.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mucahit Aydin ◽  
Ugur Korkut Pata ◽  
Veysel Inal

Purpose The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and stock prices during the period from March 2003 to March 2021. Design/methodology/approach The study uses asymmetric and symmetric frequency domain causality tests and focuses on BRIC countries, namely, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Findings The findings of the symmetric causality test confirm unidirectional permanent causality from EPU to stock prices for Brazil and India and bidirectional causality for China. However, according to the asymmetric causality test, the findings for China show that there is no causality between the variables. The results for Brazil and India indicate that there is unidirectional permanent causality from positive components of EPU to positive components of stock prices. Moreover, for Brazil, there is unidirectional temporary causality from the negative components of EPU to the negative components of stock prices. For India, there is temporary causality in the opposite direction. Originality/value The reactions of financial markets to positive and negative shocks differ. In this context, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to examine the causal relationships between stock prices and uncertainty using an asymmetric frequency domain approach. Thus, the study enables the analysis of the effects of positive and negative shocks in the stock market separately.


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