We use high-frequency indicators to analyze the economic impact of COVID-19 in Europe and the United States during the early phase of the pandemic. We document that European countries and U.S. states that experienced larger outbreaks also suffered larger economic losses. We also find that the...

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unprecedented economic stimulus worldwide. We empirically examine the impact of a withdrawal of fiscal stimulus policies on the stock markets. After constructing a database of withdrawal events, we use event study analysis and cross-country regressions to assess...

This paper focuses on evidence from stock markets as it investigates the spillovers from the United States to mainland China and Hong Kong SAR during the subprime crisis. Using both univariate and multivariate GARCH models, this paper finds that China''s stock market is not immune to the...

This paper studies the role of insider trading in explaining cross-country differences in stock market volatility. The central finding is that countries with more prevalent insider trading have more volatile stock markets, even after one controls for liquidity/maturity of the market and the...

This paper discusses the potential macroeconomic implications for Hong Kong SAR of accommodative monetary policy in the United States. It shows, through model simulations, that a resumption of the credit channel in Hong Kong SAR has the potential to create inflation in both goods and asset...

Using a panel of 27 countries, we analyze the effects of stock market liberalization on financial and macroeconomic development. We find that liberalization is associated with a short-term increase in real private investment growth of about 14 percentage points cumulatively in the four years...

A universal testing and isolation policy is the most viable way to vanquish a pandemic. Its implementation requires: (i) an epidemiological rather than clinical approach to testing, sacrificing accuracy for scalability, convenience and speed; and (ii) state intervention to ramp up production,...

This paper introduces the quantile regression- based Distance-to-Default to Probability of Default (DD-PD) mapping, which links individual firms' DD to their real world PD. Since changes in the DD depend on a handful of parameters, the mapping easily accommodates shocks arising from quantitative...

This paper, using T-GARCH models, finds that the United States has been the major source of price and volatility spillovers to stock markets in the Asian region during three different periods in the last decade: the pre-Long Term Capital Management crisis period, the ""tech bubble"" period, and...