ABSTRACT
Economic policy is a major determinant of investment and financial decisions;Moreover, prices of precious metals are highly influenced by any uncertainty recorded in the global economic policy. Therefore, the prime consideration of the authors is to assess how global economic policy uncertainty influences the volatility of precious metals prices;particularly "gold, palladium, platinum, and silver” in the pre and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research analyzed the full sample period (the 1997–2022), pre-COVID period (1997–2019), and during the COVID period (2020−2022) to evaluate the impact during different sample periods. Therefore, the GARCH-MIDAS approach is employed at the data set of different frequencies, i.e., monthly data of GEPU and daily data of precious metals. The results reveal a significant nexus between global GEPU and precious metals price volatility. The findings infer that any uncertainty recorded in global economic policy escalate the price volatility of gold, palladium, platinum, and silver prices. The present study increments the existing literature and provides insights for future scholars, investors, and policymakers. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the relationship between real economic activity and the financial and commodity markets using two approaches. First, we use the Discrete Wavelet Method to investigate the lead-lag dependence between real economic activity and these markets. Second, we use the Time-Varying Parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) model with stochastic volatility to examine the short- and long-term level of integration among these variables. Our wavelet results show that although the real economic activity shock lead co-movement with the chosen markets, it was led by these markets during periods of economic downturn as evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding the TVP-VAR results, we find that the connectedness between economic activity and the chosen markets is stronger during economic downturns or in the long run. © 2022