The dynamic volatility nexus of geo-political risks, stocks, bond, bitcoin, gold and oil during COVID-19 and Russian-Ukraine war.

We investigate the dynamic volatility connectedness of geopolitical risk, stocks, bonds, bitcoin, gold, and oil from January 2018 to April 2022 in this study. We look at connectivity during the Pre-COVID, COVID, and Russian-Ukraine war subsamples. During the COVID-19 and Russian-Ukraine war periods, we find that conventional, Islamic, and sustainable stock indices are net volatility transmitters, whereas gold, US bonds, GPR, oil, and bitcoin are net volatility receivers. During the Russian-Ukraine war, the commodity index (DJCI) shifted from being a net recipient of volatility to a net transmitter of volatility. Furthermore, we discover that bilateral intercorrelations are strong within stock indices (DJWI, DJIM, and DJSI) but weak across all other financial assets. Our study has important implications for policymakers, regulators, investors, and financial market participants who want to improve their existing strategies for avoiding financial losses.

Do implied volatilities of stock and commodity markets affect conventional & shariah indices differently? An evidence by OVX, GVZ and VIX.

The current study aims to investigate how index returns of conventional and shariah indices of the USA, Europe, and Asia are affected by changes in oil prices, gold prices, VIX, gold-VIX, and oil-VIX. In our investigation, we used the S&P 500, S&P Europe 350, S&P Pan Asia, and their relevant shariah counterparts for the USA, Europe, and Asia. To examine how the explanatory factors affect the overall distribution of the explained variables, we used OLS and quantile regression. For the time frame prior to Covid-19, we discover that all volatility indices-OVX, GVZ, and VIX-influence returns of all indices simultaneously, and that all variables-aside from the spot price of oil-have a greater impact during the bear phase according to QR findings. Further, Volatility indices have a greater impact on volatility of index returns during the Covid-19 period. This is largely because the Covid-19 outbreak had a rapid impact on economies all around the world, and the only thing that affected financial markets consistently was high volatility. This is further supported by the findings of BEKK, which demonstrate that volatility extends across all markets and originates from commodities like gold, oil, gold-VIX, and VIX. Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that during the COVID-19 period, stock prices reacted more favorably to oil price volatility than to oil spot prices, which even went negative on April 20, 2020. Because of this, market stability can be promoted by reducing volatility through the prompt dissemination of crucial information, even while governments have little direct control over the prices of significant commodities like gold and crude oil.

Information transmission in regional energy stock markets.

Since markets are undergoing severe turbulent economic periods, this study investigates the information transmission of energy stock markets of five regions including North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Pacific where we differentiated the regional energy markets based on their developing and developed state of economy. We employed time-frequency domain from Jan 1995 to May 2021 and found that energy stocks of developed regions are highly connected. The energy markets of North America, South America, and Europe are the net transmitters of spillovers, whereas the Asian and Pacific energy markets are the net receivers of spillovers. The results also reveal that the connectedness of regional energy markets is time and frequency dependent. Regional energy stocks were highly connected following the Asian financial crisis (AFC), global financial crisis (GFC), European debt crisis (EDC), shale oil revolution (SOR), and COVID-19 pandemic. Time-dependent results reveal that high spillovers formed during stress periods and frequency domain show the higher connectedness of regional energy stock markets in the short run followed by an extreme economic condition. These results have significant implications for policymakers, regulators, investors, and regional controlling bodies to adopt effective strategies during short run to avoid economic downturns and information distortions.

Examining the role of gender diversity on ownership structure-sustainable performance nexus: fresh evidence from emerging markets.

The current research presents fresh insights on empirically presenting the relationship between ownership structure and corporate sustainable performance of two emerging markets: Malaysia and Pakistan. Moreover, the moderating role of gender diversity is observed on the relationship between ownership structure and corporate sustainable performance. Dynamic estimator, named system generalized method of moments, is used for estimations that control for potential dynamic endogeneity, simultaneity, and reverse causality. Findings reveal that ownership concentration and state ownership are negatively related to economic, social, and environmental indicators of CSP both in Malaysia and Pakistan, whereas directors' ownership is positively associated with all sustainability indicators. Financial institution's ownership showed a positive significant impact on CSP in Malaysia, whereas an insignificant relationship is observed in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the moderating impact of women directors on the relationship between ownership structure and corporate sustainable performance reveals a significant impact in Malaysia and an insignificant impact in Pakistan. Generally, the findings of the study have practical implications for regulatory authorities, securities commissions, and policymakers of Malaysia and Pakistan. Moreover, there is a need to bring reforms into corporate governance structures in Pakistan, where weak economic conditions leave a frail impact of ownership structure on CSP and an insignificant moderating impact of board gender diversity.

Moderation analysis of exchange rate, tourism and economic growth in Asia.

This study brings novelty to the tourism literature by re-examining the role of exchange rate in the tourism-growth nexus. It differs from previous tourism-led growth narrative to probe whether tourism exerts a positive effect on economic growth when the exchange rate is accounted for. Using a moderation modelling framework, instrumental variables general method of moments (IV-GMM) and quantile regression techniques in addition to real per capita GDP, tourism receipts and exchange rate, the study engages data on 44 Asian countries from 2010 to 2019. Results from the IV-GMM show that: (1) tourism exerts a positive effect on growth; (2) exchange rate depreciation hampers growth; (3) the interaction effect is positive but statistically not significant; and (4) results from EAP and SA samples are mixed. For the most part, constructive evidence from the quantile regression techniques reveals that the impact of tourism and exchange is significant at lower quantiles of 0.25 and 0.50 while the interaction effect is negative and statistically significant only for the SA sample. These are new contributions to the literature and policy recommendations are discussed.

Do commodity assets hedge uncertainties? What we learn from the recent turbulence period?

This study analyses the impact of different uncertainties on commodity markets to assess commodity markets' hedging or safe-haven properties. Using time-varying dynamic conditional correlation and wavelet-based Quantile-on-Quantile regression models, our findings show that, both before and during the COVID-19 crisis, soybeans and clean energy stocks offer strong safe-haven opportunities against cryptocurrency price uncertainty and geopolitical risks (GPR). Soybean markets weakly hedge cryptocurrency policy uncertainty, US economic policy uncertainty, and crude oil volatility. In addition, GSCI commodity and crude oil also offer a weak safe-haven property against cryptocurrency uncertainties and GPR. Consistent with earlier studies, our findings indicate that safe-haven traits can alter across frequencies and quantiles. Our findings have significant implications for investors and regulators in hedging and making proper decisions, respectively, under diverse uncertain circumstances.

Fintech in islamic finance literature: A review.

This study reviews Islamic FinTech research development from 2017 to 2022. The study adopts a hybrid approach combining bibliometric and content analysis to reveal the current research trend of Islamic FinTech research. Using the Scopus database, we retrieve 85 documents and analyze them using RStudio and VOSviewer. The content analysis categorizes the research output in Islamic FinTech into four distinct streams. The study finds potential for cointegrating FinTech into Islamic finance to benefit the unbanked and small-medium-size businesses, the adoption of FinTech in Islamic finance will also help the government improve financial inclusion, conquer financial crises, such as COVID-19, and achieve SDGs for a sustainable nation. However, the lack of legal regulation and the lower financial literacy becomes the primary obstacle to the development of FinTech in Islamic finance.

A commentary on emerging markets banking sector spillovers: Covid-19 vs GFC pattern analysis.

The emerging-market banking sector plays a significant role in modern-day banking sector stability. In this study, we have used the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) version of the Generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model to estimate the correlation among Emerging Markets (BANKSEK), Latin America (BANKSLA), Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) (BANKSBC), Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS) (BANKSPI) and Far East (BANKSFE). The study covers more than 100, 200 and 300 trading days of the GFC (starting July 8, 2008) and the COVID-19 pandemic (starting January 1, 2020). We have found that generally, in the short-term excluding PIIGS, all banks show similar pairwise correlation, and the pattern holds in the medium and long term. The far east banking sector displays a reduced correlation than their counterparts, even following the same pattern.

COVID-19 and its impact on educational environment in India.

The impact of COVID-19 has revamped all aspects of human life including education sector, and it has completely changed the educational environment across the globe. Due to the pandemic, the methodical functions of educational institutions have stopped, and new phases have started like online class, online evaluation, and indoor activities. Students are the vital players in education sector, and their opinions play an indispensable role while formulating the policies by the government. In the pandemic, students' perspective on education environment finds new dimension. Therefore, this paper has made an honest attempt to know the coastal Karnataka students' stance on college educational environment. In this study, six major components of education environment are considered, namely (1) online class, (2) teaching and learning, (3) evaluation, (4) college administration, (5) extracurricular activities, and (6) teachers. The study is descriptive in nature, and data was collected from 347 college students of Coastal Karnataka. To support the main objective, a hypothesis has been developed with the help of review of literature and is tested by using ANOVA and independent t-test. The path analysis is used to analyze the casual relationships among components of college educational environment, overall perception, and student performance. The result of the study found that the college students have positive perception towards online class (M=3.14), teaching and learning (M=3.704), evaluation (M=3.38), college and administration (M=3.83), extracurricular activities (M=3.87), and teachers (M=3.63). The result of the hypothesis testing revealed that there is no significant difference in the student perception towards various components of college education system. Path analysis results show that there is relation and effect between components of college education, overall perception, and students' performance. The study concludes that students agree with policies and actions taken by colleges to carry out classes during COVID-19 pandemic irrespective of demographic and educational difference.

Does the Covid-19 pandemic affect faith-based investments? Evidence from global sectoral indices.

In this paper, we aim to investigate the influence of the Covid-19 on the behavior of the S&P 1200 Shariah and non-Shariah sectoral indices over the period from 1st October 2010 to 29th October 2020. We contribute to the global literature by examining the financial impact of the Covid-19 on the Shariah and non-Shariah sectoral indices. We find that the S&P 1200 Shariah Communication, consumer staples, financials, healthcare, industrials, IT, materials, and utility sectors earn higher average returns than their counterpart sectoral indices during the Covid-19 period. The study reports that on average, the volatility of the Shariah indices is less than their counterpart indices. Moreover, we further document that on average the S&P Shariah sectoral indices offer a higher return with low risk even during the Covid-19 global pandemic. We suggest that ethical investments are the best alternatives to retail, institutional, and foreign investors.