Economic policy uncertainty, consumer confidence in major economies and outbound tourism to African countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 135481662098538
Author(s):  
Hassan F Gholipour ◽  
Robin Nunkoo ◽  
Behzad Foroughi ◽  
Hassan Kalantari Daronkola

Uncertainty, which is the only certain thing about the future, influences economic agents, their behaviours and economic activity. Debates and concerns about policy uncertainty have intensified following events such as the financial crisis, Brexit and more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of changes in economic policy uncertainty and consumer confidence in a set of major economies on tourism flows to African countries. Using data over the period of 2005–2019 and applying panel difference generalized method of moments method, our results show that a positive change in consumer confidence in Canada, China, France, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom (UK) has favorable impact on tourism departures from these countries to 25 African countries. We also find that a positive change in uncertainty in Canada, Russia, Spain and the UK has negative effect on tourist departures from these countries to African countries. The implications of the results for tourism development in African countries are discussed.

2021 ◽  
pp. 135481662098314
Author(s):  
Conrado Diego García-Gómez ◽  
Ender Demir ◽  
Ming-Hsiang Chen ◽  
José María Díez-Esteban

This study analyzes the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the performance of US tourism firms using a sample of 296 publicly traded tourism companies from 2000 to 2018 with a sample of 3068 firm-year observations. Estimation results of panel regressio tests based on the system-generalized method of moments indicate that EPU has a negative impact on return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and Tobin’s Q. Our results are consistent for different variable specifications. We also find that firm size and leverage play a moderating role in the relationship between EPU and firm performance. Panel quantile regression results show that the impact of EPU on US tourism firm performance is asymmetric. Specifically, low-performing (25% quantile of ROA and ROE) firms are less affected by EPU, and for the case of Tobin’s Q, EPU does not affect firms with a high growth opportunity (100% quantile of Tobin’s Q).


2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-528
Author(s):  
Prince Mensah Osei ◽  
Anokye Adam

This study uses threshold cointegration technique to ascertain the relationship between United States (US) economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and monetary policy rate (MPR) of each of the four African countries, namely Egypt, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa using monthly data from March 1998 to April 2020. The impact of US EPU on MPR of each country is assessed by examining the linear cointegration, asymmetric cointegration and causal relationships in the frequency domain between the US EPU and MPR of each African country. The findings provide evidence of long-run threshold cointegration and the adjustment mechanisms towards long-run equilibrium are asymmetric in the short run for the MPR models for Ghana, Namibia and South Africa in the M-TAR specification except for Egypt’s MPR model which does not provide evidence of asymmetric adjustment towards the equilibrium position. The bivariate analysis performed in the spectral frequency domain suggests unidirectional causality between US EPU and MPR of each country and that, the US EPU influences the MPR of each country in the long run. The findings provide important guidelines to monetary policy reviewers to take policy stance that would stimulate economic growth amid US policy uncertainties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5866
Author(s):  
Muhammad Khalid Anser ◽  
Qasim Raza Syed ◽  
Hooi Hooi Lean ◽  
Andrew Adewale Alola ◽  
Munir Ahmad

Since the turn of twenty first century, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) have escalated across the globe. These two factors have both economic and environmental impacts. However, there exists dearth of literature that expounds the impact of EPU and GPR on environmental degradation. This study, therefore, probes the impact of EPU and GPR on ecological footprint (proxy for environmental degradation) in selected emerging economies. Cross-sectional dependence test, slope heterogeneity test, Westerlund co-integration test, fully modified least ordinary least square estimator, dynamic OLS estimator, and augmented mean group estimator are employed to conduct the robust analyses. The findings reveal that EPU and non-renewable energy consumption escalate ecological footprint, whereas GPR and renewable energy plunge ecological footprint. In addition, findings from the causality test reveal both uni-directional and bi-directional causality between a few variables. Based on the findings, we deduce several policy implications to accomplish the sustainable development goals in emerging economies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 135481662110253
Author(s):  
Abebe Hailemariam ◽  
Kris Ivanovski

This article models the endogenously interrelated relationship between global economic policy uncertainty (EPU), world industrial production (WIP), and the demand for US tourism net export (TNX) expenditures. To do so, we apply an identified structural vector autoregression model over monthly data spanning from January 1999 to October 2020. Our findings reveal that a positive shock in WIP has a significant positive effect on demand for TNXs. In contrast, unanticipated increases in price and EPU have a statistically significant negative effect on TNXs. Our results show that, in the long run, a one standard deviation shock in global EPU explains about 26.05% of the variations in tourism net service exports.


SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402090343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Arif Khan ◽  
Xuezhi Qin ◽  
Khalil Jebran ◽  
Abdul Rashid

This study examines the association between various uncertainties and corporate investment and further investigates this association between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). Moreover, this study analyzes the indirect effects of uncertainty on corporate investment through cash flow. The current research uses an unbalanced panel data of Chinese nonfinancial listed firms for the period 1999–2016. To control endogeneity issues, this study applies a robust two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to estimate the model. Empirical findings indicate that market-based and firm-specific uncertainties have positive effects, whereas economic policy and CAPM-based uncertainties have negative effects on corporate investment. Furthermore, results indicate that the effects of market-based, CAPM-based, and firm-specific uncertainties (economic policy uncertainty) were less (more) prominent for SOEs. Additional analyses show that cash flow stimulates the effect of firm-specific uncertainty on SOEs’ investment, whereas it weakens the influence of CAPM-based uncertainty (economic policy uncertainty) on investment of non-SOEs (SOEs). Moreover, cash flow attenuates the market uncertainty effect on investment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 239 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 957-981 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Clausen ◽  
Alexander Schlösser ◽  
Christopher Thiem

Abstract This paper analyzes spillovers and the macroeconomic effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in Europe over the last two decades. Drawing on the newspaper-based uncertainty indices by Baker et al. (2016, Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty. Quarterly Journal of Economics 131 (4): 1593–1636), we first use the Diebold and Yilmaz (2014 On the Network Topology of Variance Decompositions: Measuring the Connectedness of Financial Firms. Journal of Econometrics 182 (1): 119–134) connectedness index methodology to investigate the static and dynamic patterns of EPU spillovers. We find substantial spillovers across the European countries. Over time, Germany in particular has become increasingly connected to the other economies. In a second step, we investigate the economic impact of EPU shocks using a structural VAR. The detrimental influence of uncertainty turns out to be regime-dependent. We identify a pre-crisis, a crisis and a post-crisis regime, and the effect is only significant in the former two. Finally, the impact of EPU shocks is also heterogeneous across the monetary union’s most important members.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-476
Author(s):  
Nithya Shankar ◽  
Bill Francis

Purpose The paper aims to investigate the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) (i.e. uncertainty due to government policies) on fine wine prices. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses the Baker et al. (2016) monthly news-based measure of EPU for the leading wine markets: the USA, the UK, France, Germany and China in conjunction with monthly fine wine pricing data from the London International Vintners Exchange (Liv-ex). The wine sub-indices used are the Liv-ex 500 (Bordeaux), Burgundy 150, Champagne 50, Rhone 100, Italy 100, California 50, Port 50 and Rest of the World 50. The Prais–Winsten and Cochrane–Orcutt regressions are used for our analyses to correct for effects of serial correlation. Time lags are chosen based on the appropriate information criterion. Findings Changes in EPU levels negatively impact changes in the Liv-ex 500 index for all our leading wine markets except France, the Champagne 50 index for the UK and the Burgundy 150 and the Rhone 100 indices for Germany, with the effects being significant for at least up to a quarter before EPU is detected. The authors did not find significant results for the EPU of France. Practical implications The paper aims to provide insights into whether EPU creates opportunities or threats for investors and wineries. Originality/value A forward-looking news-based EPU measure is used to gain insights into how the different Liv-ex sub-indices react to increases in uncertainty centered around government policies across a sample of different countries.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document