How Does Fiscal Policy Affect Bank Credit? Evidence from China

Using a set of Chinese economic data and a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model, this paper investigates the transmission channels of fiscal policy to bank credit in China. We find that increases in tax revenue can increase bank credit through external financing premium channel, collateral channel, and bank liquidity channel. We also find that increases in government spending can reduce bank credit through bank liquidity channel and increase bank credit through external financing premium channel and collateral channel.

Cryptocurrency as a safe haven for investment portfolios amid COVID-19 panic cases of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin

PurposeThis article examines the susceptibility of cryptocurrencies to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) induced panic in comparison with major stock indices.Design/methodology/approachThe author employs the Bayesian structural vector autoregression to examine the phenomenon in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin from 2nd January 2020 to 30th June 2021. A similar analysis is conducted for major stock indices, namely S&P 500, FTSE 100 and SSE Composite for comparison purposes.FindingsThe results suggest that cryptocurrencies returns suffered immensely in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak following declarations of the disease as a global health emergency and eventually a pandemic in March 2020. However, the returns for all three cryptocurrencies recovered by April 2020 and remained resistant to further COVID-19 panic shocks. The results are dissimilar to those of S&P 500, FTSE 100 and SSE Composite values which were vulnerable to COVID-19 panic throughout the timeframe to June 2021. The results further reveal strong predictive power of Bitcoin on prices of other cryptocurrencies.Research limitations/implicationsThe article provides evidence to support the cryptocurrency as a safe haven during COVID-19 school of thought given their resistance to subsequent shocks during COVID-19. Thus, the author stresses the need for diversification of investment portfolios by including cryptocurrencies given their uniqueness and resistance to shocks during crises.Originality/valueThe author makes use of the novel corona virus panic index to examine the magnitude of shocks in prices of cryptocurrencies during COVID-19.

The Sustainable Development Path of the Gold Exploration and Mining of the Sanshan Island-Jiaojia Belt in Laizhou Bay: A DID-SVAR Approach

Gold is a vital strategic resource, and it plays an irreplaceable role in maintaining national financial security, enhancing currency guarantee capabilities, and serving as a country's last means of payment. Gold plays an essential role in several fields that are vital to sustainable development. In 2020, an ultra-large-scale gold deposit spanning land and sea was discovered in Sanshan Island-Jiaojia Belt, Laizhou Bay, China. Its owner, Shandong Gold Group, also established Sanshan Island as a new ecological mine model. Applying a difference in differences-structural vector autoregression (DID-SVAR) approach, our research found that the whole biodiversity of Laizhou Bay decreased by 0.27% purely due to gold exploration in Sanshan Island-Jiaojia. In the long run, gold mining will have an apparent 2.9% adverse effect on marine products, and fishing for marine products will have a 2.1% adverse effect on marine products themselves.

Government investment fiscal multipliers: evidence from Euro-area countries

This paper aims to estimate the government investment fiscal multipliers in select European countries for the period 1970–2016. To do this, we combine Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) modeling with the Local Projections (LP) approach. We estimate models by also controlling for fiscal foresight, excluding the postcrisis period and distinguishing between Northern and Southern countries. Our findings suggest that an increase in government investment generates a “Keynesian effect” by engendering positive and permanent effects on the GDP level, even when government expenditure expectations are considered. Fiscal multipliers are close to 1 on impact and increase in the years after the implementation of a discretionary fiscal policy.

The Dynamic Impact of Structural Oil Price Shocks on the Macroeconomy

In this paper, we apply the structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model to decompose the international oil price shock into oil supply shocks, aggregate demand shocks and oil-specific demand shocks, and then use the DCC-GARCH model to analyse the dynamic correlations between these three kinds of oil price shocks and the macroeconomic variables of several oil importing and exporting countries. To quantify the intensity of the effect of oil shocks on these variables, we propose a measure, conditional expectation (CoE), to capture the percent change of the economic variable under oil price shocks relative to the median state. The time-varying copula model is employed to estimate the proposed measure through time. The empirical results show that, for instance, the impacts of oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables are different in different periods, showing the time-varying characteristics. Additionally, the impacts of oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables show great differences and some similarities among different countries. Finally, we give some policy suggestions for these countries, in particular for China’s special results.

How COVID-19 Could Change the Economics of the Plastic Recycling Sector

The price of oil has a great influence on prices of recycled plastics and, therefore, plastic recycling efforts. Here, we analyze the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on crude oil price and how this, in turn, is likely to affect the degree of plastic recycling that takes place. Impulse response functions and variance decompositions, calculated from the structural vector autoregression, suggest that changes in crude oil prices are key drivers of the price of recycled plastics. The findings highlight that because plastics are made from the by-products of oil, falling oil prices increase the cost of recycling. Therefore, the price of recycled plastics should be supported using taxes while encouraging sustained behavioral changes among consumers and producers to selectively collect and recycle personal protective equipment so that they do not clog our landfills or end up in our water bodies as plastic waste.

Monetary policy effects on equity returns: application of SVAR identified with high-frequency external instrument

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of monetary policy on equity returns by applying an alternative econometric approach. Campbell and Ammer (1993) decomposed unexpected equity excess returns into three news components: risk premium news, real interest rate news and cash-flow news. The literature has determined the monetary policy (MP) effects on these news components. The authors propose an alternative MP shock identification approach to analyze the MP effects on the above-mentioned news components under a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) setup. Under this approach, one can apply an MP indicator in the SVAR, which helps forecast equity excess returns along with its external instruments for identification. Further, this study uses the various recently proposed measures of exogenous MP shocks and Fed information shocks as external instruments, and shows the different patterns of the news components' responses depending on the information in the applied instruments.

Assessing the Financial Implications of COVID-19 Within the SVAR Framework for Some Asian Countries

This article examines the structural responses of foreign exchange and equity markets to the COVID-19 pandemic in seven Asian countries over its first 4 months (31 December 2019 to 1 May 2020). Marginal effects derived from a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model suggest that a 1% increase in incidence of COVID-19 cases significantly diminished Indonesia’s equity market returns by 4.7%, depreciated the Indian rupee against the US dollar by 4.8%, but improved equity prospects in South Korea by 4.1%. For the other financial markets, the effect of COVID-19 was found to be insignificant. Further, the impulse response analyses imply that the influence of COVID-19 on foreign exchange and equity markets is only transitory in nature. Additional SVAR analysis for India and Indonesia over recent months (2 May 2020 to 22 January 2021) showed that their financial markets remained (or became) resistant to the escalating incidence of COVID-19 inflections and deaths. JEL Code: G15

Trade openness channels and labour market performance: evidence from Nigeria

PurposeThe implications of trade on developing economies have generated substantial debates with most studies focussed on “openness in the policy”. Hence, the purpose of this study is to focus on “openness in practice”.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses two models and employed the vector error correction model and structural vector autoregression, first, to examine the sectoral effects; second, to investigate the efficacy of neoclassical and new trade theories; and third, to analyse the effect of trade openness shock on Nigerian labour market performance.FindingsThe results of the first model showed that trade openness has an adverse effect on employment and wages in both the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Likewise, the study concludes that the new trade theory explains trade's behaviour on employment and wages in Nigeria. The second model showed that the effect of error shock from trade openness affected wages more than employment.Research limitations/implicationsThe study ignores the distributional effects due to unavailability of data.Practical implicationsThe study suggested, amongst others, the need for policies mix on the labour market via a coherent set of initiatives in other to increase the competitiveness of Nigeria in the international market.Originality/valueMost studies focussed on openness in policy through the channels identified in the literature. However, this study investigates these channels in “openness in practice” and investigates trade theories' efficacy on manufacturing and agricultural sectors in Nigeria, which has been neglected in the literature.