Research on Pandemics Lessons from an Economics and Finance Perspective

The lasting turmoil associated with the unprecedented pandemic, triggered by the novel corona virus COVID-19, has dragged the world into a mud of uncertainty. Fiscal stimulation, interest rate cuts, global supply-chain redeployment, "pandemic bond" and circuit breakers kicked in and the world is responding to this great challenge. But how can finance and economic research help the world under such circumstances?

This book dwells on this new area of research and tries to understand how pandemics impact the economic and financial ecosystem of both emerging and advanced economies. Lessons learnt from the experience of previous pandemics maybe presented and discussed through drawing on policy lessons to date. By gathering research on political economy, geopolitical issues, behavioral finance, international institutional responses and medical and health issues resulting from pandemics, the chapters in this edited volume help in expanding the knowledge of social and economic consequences of the pandemic as well as set the foundation for future research. This book would benefit scholars, policy makers and entrepreneurs worldwide as a valuable archive of research on pandemics.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Emerging Markets Finance and Trade.

Introduction: Research on Pandemics Special Issue of Emerging Markets Finance and Trade 1. Country Responses and the Reaction of the Stock Market to COVID-19— a Preliminary Exposition 2. Flatten the Curve and Stock Market Liquidity – An Inquiry into Emerging Economies 3. Does the Indian Financial Market Nosedive because of the COVID-19 Outbreak, in Comparison to after Demonetisation and the GST? 4. How Do Firms Respond to COVID- 19? First Evidence from Suzhou, China 5. COVID– 19’s Impact on Stock Prices Across Different Sectors— An Event Study Based on the Chinese Stock Market 6. The Impact of the COVID- 19 Pandemic on Firm Performance 7. Which Firm- specific Characteristics Affect the Market Reaction of Chinese Listed Companies to the COVID- 19 Pandemic? 8. COVID-19 Pandemic and Firm-level Cash Holding— Moderating Effect of Goodwill and Goodwill Impairment 9. Is the Chinese Economy Well Positioned to Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic? the Financial Cycle Perspective 10. The Disease Outbreak Channel of Exchange Rate Return Predictability: Evidence from COVID-19 11. Fear Sentiment, Uncertainty, and Bitcoin Price Dynamics: The Case of COVID-19 12. Constructing a Global Fear Index for the COVID-19 Pandemic 13. Accounting Index of COVID-19 Impact on Chinese Industries: A Case Study Using Big Data Portrait Analysis 14. How Does COVID-19 Affect China’s Insurance Market? 15. Household Financial Decision Making Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic 16. Pandemic, Mobile Payment, and Household Consumption: Micro-Evidence from China 17. The Response of the Labor Force Participation Rate to an Epidemic: Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis 18. Implications of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Global Trade Networks 19. COVID-19 and Air Quality: Evidence from China

Yezhou Sha is Associate Professor of Finance at Capital University of Economics and Business. His research has been published in the Economic Modelling, Pacific-basin Finance Journal, and Emerging Markets Finance and Trade.

Susan Sunila Sharma is Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Financial Econometrics & Department of Finance in Deakin Business School. In 2019, the Web of Science Group recognized her with a distinguished title of a highly cited researcher. Moreover, in 2016, she received a “highly cited early to mid- career Australian female researcher” award at the inaugural “Women in Research” citations awards, hosted by the Thomson Reuters IP and Science and the Australian National University (ANU). Google Scholar counts the citation of her work at over 3,700, with an h-index of 29. She is a co-editor of the journal Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, a subject editor of the Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money, and guest editor of multiple issues of Economic Modelling. Her research in finance has employed a wide range of recent developments in financial econometrics. Susan’s research interests are in the areas of panel predictability models, time series econometric models, price discovery, commoity markets, forecasting and energy markets.