Impact of COVID-19 and economic policy uncertainty on China's stock market returns: evidence from quantile-on-quantile and causality-in-quantiles approaches.

COVID-19 unexpectedly ensnared the entire world and wreaked havoc on global economic and financial systems. The stock market is sensitive to black swan events, and the COVID-19 disaster was no exception. Against this backdrop, this study explores the impact of COVID-19 and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on Chinese stock markets' returns for the period spanning January 23, 2020 to August 04, 2021. The outcomes of the novel quantile-on-quantile regression analysis revealed that both COVID-19 and EPU had a significant negative impact on both Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market returns, while COVID-19 aggravated the level of economic uncertainty in both financial markets. The quantile causality approach of Troster et al. (2018) validates our main estimations. We conclude that COVID-19 and a high level of EPU enervated the returns of China's leading stock markets. Our study provides key insights to policymakers and market participants to determine the behavior of China's stock market returns vis-à-vis COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic and beyond. Specifically, our findings apprise portfolio investors to augment their portfolio diversification fronts.

The impact of crude oil prices on Chinese stock markets and selected sectors: evidence from the VAR-DCC-GARCH model.

The interaction between oil and stock market returns is one of the most important relationships that have a significant influence on the economy of any country all over the world. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of crude oil prices on the Chinese stock market and selected industries by using the VAR-DCC-GARCH model over the period from December 26, 2001, to April 30, 2019. The empirical results show that the impact of Brent crude oil prices on the Shanghai Composite Index and selected industries is significant. However, there are some variations in these relationships and the degree of influence on each differs during different sample periods. Brent crude oil prices exert substantial influence on some specific industries, like mining, chemical, nonferrous metals, and steel. Whereas, the volatility spillover effect of Brent crude oil prices is stronger within the mining, chemical, steel, nonferrous metal, building materials, building decoration, electrical equipment, electrical equipment, textile and garment, light manufacturing, public utility, and transportation industries than within other industries. When oil prices change abruptly, the risk of spillover impacts of oil prices on stock markets will also increase. In conclusion, the impact of Brent crude oil prices on the Chinese stock market is generally positive. Furthermore, the subsequent volatility of Chinese stock market prices will, in turn, influence the volatility spillover of Brent crude oil prices on the indexes. The result is an ongoing back and forth of changes in price volatilities.

Psychological, social and economic impact of COVID 19 on the working population of India: Exploratory factor analysis approach.

The purpose of this study is to unravel the effects of COVID-19 on the psychological, social, and economic well-being of the working population of India. To achieve the objectives of the study, an online survey was conducted, focusing on aspects like psycho-social well-being, safety, financial stability, and work from home implications. We have used exploratory factor analysis (EFA), t-test, and analysis of variance technique to find the underlying factors. The findings suggest that the female population of the society is more vulnerable to social-psychological and organizational stress. In terms of financial stability, private employees are more unstable as compared to government employees. Based on the standard of living, people of type 1 cities are more affected by the COVID-19 outbreak compared to the people of type 2 and type 3 cities. Hence, by and large, female employees, employees working in the private sector, and employees residing in type 1 cities are more likely to have the behavioral manifestation of negative psychological states caused by this pandemic. The findings will assist policymakers in understanding and devising appropriate policies considering the psycho-social and work-related economic issues faced by the working population of India during the COVID- 19 pandemic.

An empirical investigation of nuclear energy and environmental pollution nexus in India: fresh evidence using NARDL approach.

Environmental pollution caused by carbon emissions is an emerging issue to study among researchers. The nexus between environmental pollution and carbon emissions has motivated researchers to evaluate the impact of cleaner energy on carbon emissions. This study further contributes to the research by examining the above relationship by studying the asymmetric influence of nuclear energy (NE), industrial productivity (IP), and economic growth rate (GDP) on carbon emissions (CO2) in India from 1975 to 2018 using the asymmetric autoregressive distribution lag approach. The results of the bound test and the Wald test show that in the long run, there is an asymmetric relationship between CO2, NE, GDP, and IP, and in the short run, there is a symmetric relationship between CO2, GDP, and IP. The result implies that increased usage of nuclear energy over fossil fuels and improvement in industrial productivity, in the long run, reduces CO2 emission in India. Furthermore, the study concludes that the government should consider the asymmetric relationship between the variables and devise appropriate policies to increased nuclear energy and industrial productivity in India for environmental sustainability.