Exchange Rates and Liquidity Risk

I use Forex trading data to study how risks associated with the lack of liquidity contribute to the dynamics of 17 spot exchange rates through their time-varying contributions to risk premia. I find that liquidity risk matters. All the foreign exchange risk premia compensate investors for exposure to liquidity risk; and, for many currencies, exposure to liquidity risk appears to be more important than exposure to the traditional carry and momentum risk factors. I also find that variations in the price of liquidity risk make economically important contributions to the behavior of individual foreign currency returns: they account for approximately 34%, on average, of the variability in currency returns compared to the contribution of approximately 8% from the prices of carry and momentum risk.

COVID-19 Pandemic Uncertainty Shock Impact on Macroeconomic Stability in Ethiopia

This study investigated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty shock on the macroeconomic stability in Ethiopia in the short run period. The World Pandemic Uncertainty Index (WPUI) was used a proxy variable to measure COVID-19 Uncertainty shock effect. The pandemic effect on core macroeconomic variables like investment, employment, prices (both food & non-food prices), import, export and fiscal policy indicators was estimated and forecasted using Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) Model. The role of fiscal policy in mitigating the shock effect of coronavirus pandemic on macroeconomic stability is also investigated. The finding of the study reveals that the COVID-19 impact lasts at least three years to shake the economy of Ethiopia. Given that the Ethiopian economy heavily relies on import to supply the bulk of its consumption and investment goods, COVID-19 uncertainty effect starts as supply chain shock, whose effect transmitted into the domestic economy via international trade channel. The pandemic uncertainty shock effect is also expected to quickly transcend to destabilize the economy via aggregate demand, food & non-food prices, investment, employment and export shocks. The overall impact of COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty shock is interpreted into the economy by resulting under consumption at least in the next three years since 2020. Therefore, the government is expected to enact incentives/policy directions which can boost business confidence. A managed expansionary fiscal policy is found key to promote investment, employment and to stabilize food & non-food prices. A particular role of fiscal policy was identified to stabilizing food, transport and communication prices. The potency of fiscal policies in stabilizing food, transport and communication prices go in line with the prevailing reality in Ethiopia where government has strong hands to control those markets directly and/or indirectly. This suggests market failure featuring COVID-19 time, calling for managed interventions of governments to promote market stabilities. More importantly, price stabilization policies of the government can have spillover effects in boosting aggregate demand by spurring investments (and widening employment opportunities) in transport/logistics, hotel & restaurant, culture & tourism and export sectors in particular.

On Option Greeks and Corporate Finance

This paper has proposed new option Greeks and new upper and lower bounds for European and American options. It shows that because of the put-call parity, the Greeks of put and call options are interconnected and should be shown simultaneously. In terms of the theory of the firm, it is found that both the Black-Scholes-Merton and the binomial option pricing models implicitly assume that maximizing the market value of the firm is not equivalent to maximizing the equityholders’ wealth. The binomial option pricing model implicitly assumes that further increasing (decreasing) the promised payment to debtholders affects neither the speed of decreasing (increasing) in the equity nor the speed of increasing (decreasing) in the insurance for the promised payment. The Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model implicitly assumes that further increasing (decreasing) in the promised payment to debtholders will: (1) decrease (increase) the speed of decreasing (increasing) in the equity though bounded by upper and lower bounds, and (2) increase (decrease) the speed of increasing (decreasing) in the insurance though bounded by upper and lower bounds. The paper also extends the put-call parity to include senior debt and convertible bond. It specifies the lower bound for risky debt and the conditions under which American put option will not be early exercised.

Impact of Political Uncertainty on Pakistan Stock Exchange: An Event Study Approach

Pakistan is struggling against many problems; out of which political instability and terrorism are crucial problems. These issues hindered the economic growth of the country as well as the confidence of investors. This study has investigated the impact of political events on Pakistan Stock Exchange. This paper uses a standard event study methodology. Data relating to the stock market index has been collected from the website of Pakistan Stock Exchange and relating to political events has been collected from the newspapers of Business Recorder and DAWN. A total of 18 political events was considered in the study out of which 08 events were coded as positive and other 10 were deemed negative. The first day abnormal return, a five-day cumulative abnormal return and ten-day cumulative return was calculated for all of the events. This study found evidence that political events affected the stock market in Pakistan, but their impact is different considering the economic and political implications of these events. Certain events had the strongest impact on the stock market like Nuclear tests for effective defense, the Supreme Court had revoked the Presidential order and Nawaz Sharif had been reinstated, General elections held in the country and the 14th amendment because 14th amendment was related to the elimination of corruption in political parties. Overall, this study laid the foundation to make further explorations into the phenomenon of uncertainty caused by political events in relevance to the stock market in Pakistan.

On the Causal Nature between Financial Development and Economic Growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Is it Supply Leading or Demand Following?

This paper seeks to study and answer the question on the nature and direction of the causality between financial development and economic growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) using data from 2004 to 2019. The long-term relationship not being robust, we opted for the short-term dynamics with the causality test in the sense of Granger to support this question. The results indicated the existence of a one-way causality from economic growth to financial development. This result is in line with the Demand following hypothesis, given the country’s economic and financial landscape, which presents a less deep financial system. Consequently, choices of growth policies (increase in knowledge, infrastructure, pleasant business climate, structural reforms, etc.) should be adopted to enhance and develop the Congolese financial system. However, we recognize that once growth is restored and becomes sustainable, financial development could lead to sustained and resilient economic growth.

Discussion of Financial Integration at the Global Market Era

This paper purpose is to discuss the latest troubling episode and remind the most critical event again at the world is the integration. First, the last attempt by the countries had been discussing and pronoun that the free market and its extensions are the most prominent phenomena around the world that market participants' perceptions are determined the equilibria prices freely. All the development into the markets witnesses that free market dynamics and the creation of the single global market is the most dominant factor to create a tremendous stimulus behind economic growth. This paper consequently supporting the view that financial integration is providing the necessary conditions to risk-sharing and capital flows to stimulus the economic growth with the expected level at global.

The Advanced Proposed Architecture of Eco-Currency: Technical Analysis of West Africa Single Currency Program

The different target of the time period has been established over the past two decades in the institutionalization of a single currency union in West Africa. Depending on varied reasons the proposed programs have always failed before the set timelines in respect of ECOWAS monetary unification and single currency adoption. As a result, the paper explored and developed its argument based on the existing studies of structured economic shocks, significant to the failure of the single currency union, and its major causal factors. And with observed structured analysis propose catalytic activator method as a theoretical guide to attain the single currency union within three (3) years ahead, if the necessary requirement as the commitment level of members’ State is applied towards the single currency unification program. It then elaborates in the spirit of precision the process required to sustain the eco-currency program in other to elevate members State in an out-date of its domestic currencies struggling as a subservient economic bloc to the adoption of a new anticipated domineering currency in its own merit to shoulder with the global dominating hard currencies.

Shape Factor Asymptotic Analysis I

We proposed using shape factor to distinguish probability distributions, and using relative minimum or maximum values of shape factor to locate distribution parameter allowable ranges for distribution fitting in our previous study. In this paper, the shape factor asymptotic analysis is employed to study such conditional minimum or maximum, to cross validate results found from numerical study and empirical formula we obtained and published earlier. The shape factor defined as kurtosis divided by skewness squared is characterized as the unique maximum choice of among all factors that is greater than or equal to 1 for all probability distributions. For all distributions from a specific distribution family, there may exists such that. The least upper bound of all such is defined as the distribution family’s characteristic number. The useful extreme values of the shape factor for various distributions that are found numerically before, the Beta, Kumaraswamy, Weibull, and GB2 distributions are derived using asymptotic analysis. The match of the numerical and the analytical results may arguably be considered proof of each other. The characteristic numbers of these distributions are also calculated. The study of the extreme value of the shape factor, or the shape factor asymptotic analysis, help reveal properties of the original shape factor, and reveal relationship between distributions, such as that between the Kumaraswamy distribution and the Weibull distribution.

The Linkages between Inflation and Inflation Uncertainty in Selected Asian Economies: Evidence from Quantile Regression

This paper examines inflation-inflation uncertainty nexus in both inflation targeting and non-inflation targeting economies in Asia. Using monthly data from 1979M1 to 2019M12, the AR(p)-EGARCH model is used to generate inflation uncertainty series. In addition, quantile regression is employed to examine the linkages between inflation and inflation uncertainty in nine Asian countries. The results show that inflation positively causes inflation uncertainty in all economies regardless of whether economies have implemented inflation targeting or not. The Friedman-Ball hypothesis is thus supported. In addition, inflation uncertainty positively causes inflation in most economies. Therefore, the Cukierman-Meltzer hypothesis is likely to be supported. The findings signal the possibility of the real cost of inflation for these economies.

Stock Market Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Emerging Asian Stock Market

This paper studies empirically the emerging Asian stock market vulnerability to pandemics. Taking the Covid-19 virus as a case study, we used the ARDL panel data approach to investigate the impact of the daily Covid-19 confirmed cases along with a behavioral component based on a triggering fear event related to news about Covid-19 deaths. The results indicate that both the reported daily growth of Covid-19 confirmed cases along with the triggering fear event related to news about death, affected the Asian stock markets performance negatively, other variables such as oil price, gold price, exchange rates, and the US stock market were also found to be determinants of the Asian stock markets during the studied period.