Do Investors' Sentiment Dynamics affect Stock Returns? Evidence from the US Economy

This paper contributes to the understanding of the non-linear causal linkage between investors' sentiment dynamics and stock returns for the US economy. Employing the sentiment index developed by Baker and Wurgler (J. Econ. Perspect. 16: 129-151, 2007) and within a non-linear causality framework, we found that sentiment embodies significant predictive power with respect to stock returns

Greater economic support would have softened the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on labor markets across the states

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen over one million deaths and millions of infections in the US since early 2020. In new research, Theologos Dergiades, Costas Milas and Theodore Panagiotidis find that many of the measures aimed at tackling the pandemic, such as mask-wearing and social distancing also had effects on unemployment in the states. They write interventions like lockdowns cause a spike in unemployment insurance claims for six weeks from when they begin and that economic support measures can help to mitigate these effects. They conclude that better coordination between economic support policies and interventions like mask wearing could have further reduced the increase in pandemic-related unemployment insurance claims

Before vaccines, government interventions were more effective at controlling COVID-19 when combined with economic support measures

Before the development of COVID-19 vaccines to reduce the spread of the virus, US state and federal authorities were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as school and workplace closures, the cancelation of public events, and public information campaigns. In new research, Theologos Dergiades, Costas Milas, Elias Mossialos, and Theodore Panagiotidis look at the effects of these interventions in the early days of the pandemic. They find that, in the absence of a vaccine, when used alongside economic support measures, such interventions were effective in controlling the growth of COVID-19 infections

Arrivals of tourists in Cyprus: mind the web search intensity

This paper validates the raison d’être of the effortlessly recovered web Search Intensity Indices (SII) for predicting the arrivals of tourists in Cyprus. By using monthly data (2004-2015) and two causality testing procedures we find, for properly selected key-phrases, that web search intensity (adjusted for different languages and different search engines) turns out to convey a useful predictive content for the arrivals of tourists in Cyprus. Additionally, we show that whenever the prevailing shares of visitors come from countries in different languages, then the identification of the aggregate SII becomes complex. Hence, we argue that blindly using key-phrases to identify an aggregate SII is like an immersion into the unknown, since two sources of bias (the language bias and the search engine bias) are fully neglected. Given the importance of the tourism sector in the total economy activity of Cyprus, our findings might prove to be quite useful to governmental agencies, policy makers and other stakeholders of the sector when their purpose is to allocate effectively the existing limited resources, and to plan short- and long-run promotion and investment strategies

Energy Consumption and Economic Growth: Parametric and Non-Parametric Causality Testing for the Case of Greece

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the linear and non-linear causal linkages between total energy consumption and economic activity, making use of annual time series of Greece for the period 1960-2008. Two are the salient features of our study: first, the total energy consumption has been adjusted for qualitative differences among its constituent components through the thermodynamics of energy conversion. In doing so, we rule out the possibility of a misleading inference due to aggregation bias. Second, the investigation of the causal linkage between economic growth and the adjusted for quality total energy consumption is conducted within a non-linear context. Our empirical results reveal significant unidirectional both linear and non-linear causal linkages running from total useful energy to economic growth. These findings may provide valuable information for the contemplation of more effective energy policies with respect to both the consumption of energy and environmental protection

Unemployment Claims During COVID-19 and Economic Support Measures in the U.S.

Governments want to know how effective COVID-19 anti-contagion policies and implemented economic stimulus measures have been to plan their short-run interventions. We condition on the state of the pandemic to assess the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions and economic stimulus policies on the excess unemployment insurance claims in the United States. We focus on weekly data between February 2020 and January 2021 and motivate our analysis by the theoretical framework of the second-wave SIR-macro type models to build a panel Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) specification. Non-pharmaceutical interventions become effective immediately and impact the labor market negatively. Economic stimulus takes about a month to turn effective and only partially eases the economic welfare losses. Health-related restrictive measures are primarily driven by the state of the pandemic. Economic support policies depend predominantly on the reaction of the labor market rather than the severity of the pandemic itself

Energy Consumption and Economic Growth: Parametric and Non-Parametric Causality Testing for the Case of Greece

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the linear and non-linear causal linkages between total energy consumption and economic activity, making use of annual time series of Greece for the period 1960-2008. Two are the salient features of our study: first, the total energy consumption has been adjusted for qualitative differences among its constituent components through the thermodynamics of energy conversion. In doing so, we rule out the possibility of a misleading inference due to aggregation bias. Second, the investigation of the causal linkage between economic growth and the adjusted for quality total energy consumption is conducted within a non-linear context. Our empirical results reveal significant unidirectional both linear and non-linear causal linkages running from total useful energy to economic growth. These findings may provide valuable information for the contemplation of more effective energy policies with respect to both the consumption of energy and environmental protection