COVID-19 social distancing measures and economic growth: Distinguishing short- and long-term effects

The power of clans: How social capital sheltered firms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Data from 3,555 Chinese listed firms show that firms in cities with greater clan strength faced smaller losses and swifter recovery following COVID-19. Clans were significantly related to individual values facilitating pandemic prevention; these ties guaranteed economic activities and sheltered firms from the shock. Our results frame social capital as a complementarity to formal institutions during crises.

Non-rigorous versus rigorous home confinement differently impacts mental health, quality of life and behaviors. Which one was better? A cross-sectional study with older Brazilian adults during covid-19 first wave

BACKGROUND

The implementation of social distancing measures during covid-19 influenced health outcomes and population´s behaviors, and its rigidity was very different across countries. We aimed to verify the association between the rigidity of social distancing measures of covid-19 first wave with depression symptoms, quality of life and sleep quality in older adults.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study including 1023 older adults (90% women; 67.68 ± 5.92 years old) of a community-based program in Fortaleza (Brazil). Dependent variables (depression symptoms, sleep quality, and quality of life) were measured through phone calls along June 2020, during the first covid-19 wave. Confinement rigidity (non-rigorous and rigorous) was considered as independent variable. Sociodemographic characteristics (sex, marital status, scholarity, and ethnicity), number of health conditions, nutritional status, movement behavior (physical activity and sitting time), technological skills, and pet ownership were considered as confounding variables. A binomial logistic regression (odds ratio [OR]) was performed to verify the association of confinement rigidity and depression symptoms, sleep quality, and quality of life, adjusted by confounding variables.

RESULTS

Older adults who adopted a less rigid lockdown had a higher frequency of depression symptoms, worse perception of quality of life, and bad sleep quality (p < 0.001). Confinement rigidity was able to explain the probability of depression symptoms occurrence (OR: 2.067 [95% CI: 1.531-2.791]; p < 0.001), worse quality of life (OR: 1.488 [95% CI: 1.139-1.944]; p < 0.05), and bad sleep quality (OR: 1.839 [95% CI: 1.412-2.395]; p < 0.001). Even adjusted by confounding variables, confinement rigidity was able to explain the poor outcomes analyzed in older adults.

CONCLUSION

Our findings showed that less rigid lockdown was associated with a superior frequency of depression symptoms, worse sleep quality, and lower perception of quality of life in older adults. Therefore, our study could improve comprehension regarding the impact of social distancing measures rigidity in health-related conditions and in the context of covid-19 and other similar pandemic situations.

Direct and spillover portfolio effects of COVID-19

This paper investigates the direct and spillover portfolio effects from the global outbreak of COVID-19. We find that an increase of the newly added cases of one specific country causes investors to significantly decrease their portfolio allocations in the outbreak countries (direct effect). Simultaneously, investors also decrease their allocations to other countries (spillover effect). In addition, we provide evidence and documentation that the transmission mechanism underlying foreign exposures matter to the above-mentioned portfolio effect. Moreover, we provide evidence for phase heterogeneity. The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has significant direct and spillover portfolio effects, but the impacts are weakened in second wave of the pandemic. The capital reallocation effect occurs only when the disease becomes global. Finally, our heterogeneities analysis shows that both local and spillover effects are mitigated when the economies are more developed and democratic and when the country has better health care facilities.

Wealth exchange and decision-making psychology in epidemic dynamics

A binary wealth exchange mechanism, which involves the influence of the epidemic environment and agents' psychology on trading decisions, is introduced to discuss the wealth distribution of agents under the background of an epidemic. We find that the trading psychology of agents may affect wealth distribution and make the tail of the steady-state wealth distribution slimmer. The steady-state wealth distribution displays a bimodal shape under appropriate parameters. Our results suggest that government control measures are essential to curb the spread of epidemics, and vaccination may help to improve the economy, while contact control measures may aggravate wealth inequality.

COVID-19 and finance scholarship: A systematic and bibliometric analysis

COVID-19 has posed unprecedented challenges to global finances because of its unparalleled global scope, with both concomitant shocks as well as the likely altering of risk assessments and forecasts for the foreseeable future. As the effects of COVID-19 on financial markets and institutions have been widely addressed by various literature, we systematically synthesize this literature. Through a comprehensive search process, we extract and review 818 articles. Appling bibliometric methods, we explore the trends among various research constituents involved in the field. Using multi-dimensional scaling, we identify the intellectual structure of research in the domain and outline four distinct themes. We also identify the evolution and shifts in research within the short span of three years since the inception of COVID-19. Through detailed content analysis, various future research directions are proposed.

How does the COVID-19 affect earnings management: Empirical evidence from China

Using China's A-share listed companies from 2018 to 2020, this paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on earnings management. The results reveal that: (1) The COVID-19 shock intensifies earnings management, which is reflected in the increasing accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management. Moreover, when enterprises face a higher degree of financial constraints, this shock effect is more evident. (2) Enterprises in industries and regions where COVID-19 is more severe are more affected by the suspension of work and production caused by the epidemic prevention policies, so these enterprises choose accrual-based earnings management through accounting items rather than carrying out earnings management through real activities. (3) Further analysis finds that, enterprises with more investment opportunities have more evident earnings management caused by the COVID-19 shock. However, high-quality auditing has an inhibitory effect on accrual-based earnings management caused by the COVID-19 shock but has no inhibitory effect on real earnings management.

The effects of daily growth in COVID-19 deaths, cases, and governments' response policies on stock markets of emerging economies

Since the beginning of COVID-19, human beings have been threatened by various aspects. As of February 14, 2022, this global pandemic has caused about 412 million cases and 5.8 million deaths worldwide. Stock markets are one of the most agile economic indicators. In this context, this study investigates how daily growth in deaths, daily growth in cases, and governmental interventions affect stock market returns in 21 emerging economies from January 22 to December 31, 2020. Our results indicate that government response policies to Covid-19 positively impact stock returns. Besides, the daily growths in deaths and cases negatively affect stock market returns. The results also indicate that government response policies also have an indirect positive effect on stock market returns by weakening the negative impact of the daily growth in COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths.

Public Health Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia: The Role of the Morrison Government

The Australian Commonwealth government has four health-related responsibilities during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: to provide national leadership; to manage external borders; to protect residents of residential aged care facilities; and to approve, procure and roll-out tests and vaccines. State governments are responsible for determining what public health measures are appropriate and implementing them-including managing the border quarantine arrangements and the testing, tracing, and isolation regime-and managing the hospital response. This paper analyses the national government's response to the pandemic and discusses why it has attracted a thesaurus of negative adjectives.

Financial inclusion and education: An empirical study of financial inclusion in the face of the pandemic emergency due to Covid-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean

Financial inclusion and education contribute to a country's development and economic growth. However, despite the significant efforts being made to increase access to financial products for women, a high percentage still do not have access to and effective use of formal financial services in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. This study analyzes financial inclusion (based on gender equality) in the countries studied using a pooled-panel ordinary least squares econometric technique. Furthermore, the impact of interactions between the level of study, use of technology, academic degree during the Covid-19 restrictions, number of credit borrowers, and number of borrowers with the interaction of the restrictions during the health emergency was evaluated employing the Gini coefficient and human development index (HDI). This study confirms that Latin America and the Caribbean countries can increase financial inclusion by changing their social aspects based on gender equality to ease using technology and access to credit. The results of this study are helpful for policy-makers in formulating and implementing policies that lead to action plans that reverse an exclusionary financial system, promote financial education, and empower women.

Dynamic Causality Analysis of COVID-19 Pandemic Risk and Oil Market Changes

Crude oil draws attention in recent research as its demand may indicate world economic growth trend in the post-COVID-19 era. In this paper, we study the dynamic lead–lag relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and crude oil future prices. We perform rolling-sample tests to evidence whether two pandemic risk scores derived from network analysis, including a preparedness risk score and a severity risk score, Granger-cause changes in oil future prices. In our empirical analysis, we observe 49% to 60% of days in 2020 to 2021 during which the pandemic scores significantly affected oil futures. We also find an asymmetric lead–lag relationship, indicating that there is a tendency for oil futures to move significantly when the pandemic is less severe but not when it is more severe. This study adopts preparedness risk score and severity risk score as proxy variables to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic risk on oil market. The asymmetric lead–lag behavior between pandemic risk and oil future prices provides insights on oil demand and consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to calm down the markets? The effects of COVID-19 economic policy responses on financial market uncertainty

Financial markets during the COVID-19 pandemic are characterized by a prolonged period of increased uncertainty. In this paper, we analyse how the announcements of policy interventions and responses, to buffer short-term economic impact of the pandemic and offset financial turmoil, have affected the level of realized volatility in 23 countries. Under the augmented heterogeneous autoregressive model framework, we show that the international calming effect of COVID-19 economic policy actions originates from the US macroprudential policy announcements.

The performance of Islamic versus conventional stocks during the COVID-19 shock: Evidence from firm-level data

In this study, we extend the recently heated debate that compares the performance of Shariah compliant equities with their non-Shariah compliant counterparts especially during the Covid-19 shock. Unlike the existing literature, which uses stock market index level data to reach controversial conclusions, we use firm-level stock returns data to find robust evidence that Shariah compliant stocks outperformed their conventional counterparts during the Covid-19 market meltdown. More specifically, we find that the prices of Shariah compliant stocks reacted to the increase in Coronavirus confirmed cases and government social distancing measures with lower negative returns than the prices of non-Shariah compliant stocks. Overall, our findings imply that Shariah compliant stocks fared better during the Covid-19 crisis episode.