Ghulam Mujtaba Kayani

This study investigates the weak-form efficiency and asymmetric multifractal scaling behavior of rare earth stock indices in the global, U.S. and Chinese markets during the trade war and the COVID-19 period. We examine the scaling behavior across overall, upward (bullish), and downward (bearish) market states from 2013 to 2021, employing an asymmetric multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis approach. Our findings indicate asymmetric multifractality in U.S. rare earth stock prices, caused by fat tails and long-range correlations. Weak-form price inefficiency and asymmetry in U.S. rare earth stock prices are prominent during market downturns, such as the trade war and COVID-19 periods. Chinese rare earth stocks demonstrate greater efficiency than U.S. and global stocks; thus, the latter markets provide arbitrage opportunities during upward and downward trends.

The current study investigates the connectedness between US COVID-19 news, Dowes Jones Index (DJI), green bonds, gold, and bitcoin prices for the period 22 January 2020–3 August 2021. The study has employed wavelet coherency, the continuous wavelet transform, and the wavelet-based Granger causality methods to obtain the dependence result. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) analysis reveals that the United States equity market prices are extremely sensitive with regard to spreading coronavirus (USCOVID-19) news and changes in the oil price. Green bonds, gold, and bitcoin have minimal connectedness with the equity market, which might lead to the hedge and safe haven role of these assets during the COVID-19 crisis period. Lastly, very strong comovement was found between bitcoin and gold during the entire sample. The results of the present study offer a number of fresh and noticeable policy implications for international investors and asset managers.

This paper investigates the impact of CO₂ emissions, air pollution (PM2.5) exposure, foreign remittances, energy consumption, renewable energy consumption, trade openness, and gross domestic product per capita on health expenditure in a panel of the 27 highest emitting countries from 2000 to 2019. Focusing on objectives, panel ARDL, and dynamic simulated ARDL models are used to examine the short-run and long-run impact of the variables on health expenditure. An asymmetric or nonlinear ARDL model is used to test the asymmetric effect of CO₂ emissions, air pollution exposure, and foreign remittance inflows on health expenditure. The results show that environment-degrading factors, remittances, and GDP per capita significantly impact health expenditure. There is an asymmetric effect of remittances, CO₂ emissions, and air pollution (PM2.5) exposure on health expenditure. Based on the results, the study suggests policymakers should make policies regarding environment-degrading elements as these factors cause huge increases in health spending in a country. Consumption of renewable energy helps reduce health expenditure as it does not cause environmental degradation, irrespective of other forms of energy, and it is suggested that policies relating to foreign remittance inflows should be encouraged and made efficient.

The study examines the nexus between Basel capital requirements, banking sector risk-taking, and profitability in Asian emerging markets by using dynamic panel GMM methodology. The findings of the study suggest that regulatory capital positively affects risk-taking which validates the “regulatory hypothesis.” The findings also reveal that regulatory capital positively while risk negatively affects the profitability in the banking sector. The current study finds the bidirectional causality between the regulatory capital and risk-taking, implying that banks with higher capital ratios are expected to increase in risk-taking and vice versa. The findings also suggest that managerial ownership positively affects while foreign ownership negatively impacts risk-taking consistent with the agency theory of corporate governance. The study proposes that ownership structure has a significant influence on bank risk and profitability, however, the combined impact of regulatory capital through its interaction with the ownership structure is not proved to be significant.

The rapid economic growth over recent years and the resulting environmental pollution in OECD countries are a serious concern for the health of the general public. A comprehensive analysis of environmental pollutants, economic growth, and public health is done using data from 28 OECD economies from 2002 to 2018. Panel fully modified least squares and the panel vector error correction model are used. The results show that there is long-run causality from renewable energy and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions to healthcare spending. Renewable energy and healthcare spending are positively and significantly related. It is concluded that investment in renewable energy leads to a reduction in air pollution, improvements in healthcare, and the promotion of economic growth.

This paper investigates the decoupling and integration between the region-wise (Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas) developed and emerging market’s equity pairs of Islamic and conventional stock returns with the focus on multi-horizons. In doing so, daily wavelet and ADCC-based stock returns correlations are estimated to capture the dynamics of time-frequency and the time-domain based correlations, respectively. The findings of this study indicate that at the short-term horizon, the all selected emerging and developed Islamic and conventional equity markets across all regions depict a high positive correlation, suggesting a rejection of the decoupling hypothesis. However, it is accepted for some of the developed markets of the Pacific region (Hong Kong and New Zealand), Europe (Ireland, Denmark and Spain) and emerging markets of Asia (China), Europe (Czech Republic) and Americas (Argentina and Peru) at a medium-term horizon. Moreover, in an examination of the comparative behaviors of the wavelet and ADCC-based Islamic-conventional correlations, the observed transitional behavior has been exemplified as the difference between the time-frequency and time-domain analysis. This study provides fruitful insights for investors who opt for cross-asset allocation and seek maximum portfolio diversification benefits.

This study examines the impact of regulatory capital requirements and ownership structure on bank lending in Emerging Asian Markets. The findings of the study imply that banks with excess capital are less affected by capital constraints and enjoy opportunities to extend their credit portfolios. The monitory policy indicator has the expected negative and significant impact on bank lending. In case of well-capitalized banks, the interaction between the excess capital and monetary policy indicator has a significant positive relation with bank lending, which means that banks with excess capital have capability to raise uninsured financing and shield their loan portfolios as compared to less-capitalized banks that reduce their lending in the period of monetary tightening. In the case of bank ownership structure, banks with excess capital ratios and ownership concentration lead towards an increase in lending activity. The findings also show that well-capitalized banks with managerial ownership tend to reduce lending which validates agency theory of corporate governance.

This paper examines the financial cointegration and spillover effect of the global financial crisis to emerging Asian financial markets (India, China, Pakistan, Malaysia, Russia and Korea). The analysis used daily stock returns, divided into three time periods: pre-, during and post-crisis from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2015. We applied the Johansen and Juselius cointegration test, the vector error correction model (V.E.C.M.) and the G.A.R.C.H.-B.E.K.K. model for an examination of integration and conditional volatility. We find long-term cointegration between the U.S. market and emerging stock markets, and the level of cointegration increased after the crisis period. The V.E.C.M. and impulse response function reveal that a shock in the U.S. financial market has a short-term impact on the returns of emerging financial markets. Past shocks and volatility have more effect on the selected stock markets during all time periods. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index and the Bombay stock exchange (B.S.E.) are the only stock markets that have cross-market news and volatility spillover effects during the crisis period. After the crisis period, news effects are positive on the B.S.E. and the Russian Trading System and have a negative effecton the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange.