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The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic upended societies across the world, with billions forced into lockdowns. As countries contemplated instating and rolling back lockdown measures, and considered the impact of pandemic fatigue on policy measures, and furthermore to prepare for the improved management of future pandemics, this study examines the effectiveness of policy measures in limiting the spread of infections and fatalities.

The methodological approach in the study centres on a fixed effects panel regression analysis and employs the COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index, which comprises eight containment measures and three health campaigns, with progressive degrees of stringency, in order to investigate the efficacy of government policies.

Findings suggest that some government policies were effective at reducing implicit mortality rates, infection cases and fatalities during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Solid stringency measures to reduce mortality rates include public gathering restrictions on more than 100 attendees, and international travel limits for developed countries and islands. Fatalities can further be reduced through the closing of public transport, whereas infection cases also experience benefits from public information campaigns. Comparable results are observed in a robustness test across 12 months.

Some non-pharmaceutical policies are shown to be more effective than others at reducing the spread of infections, fatalities and mortality rates, and support policymakers to manage future pandemics more effectively.

This study seeks to investigate role of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on clean energy stocks for the United States for the period 21 January 2020–16 August 2021.

At the empirical stage, the Fourier-augmented vector autoregression approach has been used.

According to the empirical results, the response of the clean energy stocks to the feverish sentiment, lockdown stringency, oil volatility, dirty assets, and monetary policy dies out within a short period of time. In addition, the authors find that there is a unidirectional causality from the feverish sentiment index and the lockdown stringency index to the clean energy stock returns; and from the monetary policy to the clean energy stocks. At the same time, there is a bidirectional causality between the lockdown stringency index and the feverish sentiment index. The empirical findings can be helpful to both practitioners and policy-makers.

Among the COVID-19 variables used in this study is a new feverish sentiment index, which has been constructed using principal component analysis. The importance of the feverish sentiment index is that it allows us to examine the impact of the aggregate level of fear in the economy on clean energy stocks.

This paper empirically investigates how cultural variations in individualism and tightness affected the containment of COVID-19 using data from 54 nations during a 30-day period of government intervention.

The authors utilized the hierarchical regression approach to check the effects of three cultural variables – the individualism measure, taken from Hofstede’s six-dimension national culture index, and the measure of cultural tightness, based on the three tightness–looseness indexes calculated by Irem Uz (2015) and their interaction – on the changes in the prevalence rate (ΔPR) and crude mortality rate (ΔCMR) and case fatality rate (CFR) while controlling for the stringency of government responses to COVID-19, median age and population density.

Significant relationships were found between cultural variables and national performance in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, measured by ΔPR, ΔCMR and CFR. After controlling for the stringency of government responses, median age and population density, the authors found that cultural tightness and individualism as well as their interactions remain to be pivotal. Loose and individualistic cultures led to faster increases in PR and CMR and higher CFR. A four-quadrant conceptual framework is developed to categorize and discuss the national differences.

The paper integrated two constructs – cultural tightness–looseness and individualism–collectivism – to form a theoretical lens to guide the authors’ analyses while using the real-time COVID-19 data as a natural experiment for theorizing and testing. This study’s findings have significant policy implications in government responses, strategic planning, cultural adaptability and policy implementations for the world’s continuous battle against the pandemic.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on trade flows in Asia Pacific countries and explores the causality between COVID-19-related shocks and trade.

The authors used two novel techniques, namely, two-stage instrumental-variables (2SIV) approach and Juodis, Karavias and Sarafids (JKS) causality test, to examine trade dynamics in the Asia Pacific region during the pandemic.

Using the monthly trade data of 17 Asia Pacific countries between January 2020 and December 2021, the results were threefold. Firstly, the empirical analysis showed that during the COVID-19 crisis, the flow of exports tended to persist idiosyncratically in comparison to the flow of imports. In particular, a specific finding was that the persistence level in exports was about 20%–25% higher than that in imports. Secondly, the authors found that the past values of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths contain information that helps to predict exports/imports over and above the information contained in the past values of exports/imports alone. Finally, the study established that the government response and stringency indexes have a Granger-causal relationship with exports and imports.

For the foreseeable future, these findings have significant policy ramifications. Firstly, if a COVID-19 crisis-like situation emerges in the future, it will be critical for countries to maintain their competitiveness throughout the crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, while also rebuilding trade relationships wherever possible. Secondly, because information about government responses and measures can also be used to predict future trade flows, prudent management of government responses and stringent measures will be necessary in a crisis like COVID-19 to achieve the optimum level of exports and imports. At the same time, the trading partners should give up the idea of trade protection and focus on finding a way to balance the conflicting needs of imports and exports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors, for the first time, used a 2SIV approach and JKS causality test to examine trade dynamics in the Asia Pacific region during the pandemic. In addition, the authors present the first comprehensive analysis of the evolving relationships between export and import flows and governmental policy responses under COVID-19. As a result, it contributes uniquely to both public and international economics.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, the paper aims to determine the separate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and government actions represented by the index of stringency, containment and economic support on the attractiveness of foreign direct investment (FDI). Secondly, the paper aims to explore the impact of the interactions between the COVID-19 epidemic and government interventions on FDI.

The study uses a panel data set of 30 Asian countries during the two pandemic years 2020 and 2021 to investigate the effect of government actions on the resilience of FDI attractiveness factors.

The empirical results reveal the negative effect of COVID-19 on FDI inflows and attractiveness factors. However, government responses have a positive and statistically significant effect on the FDI attractiveness factors such as economic growth, trade openness and human and technological capital development and contribute to the economic recovery of the Asian region.

The empirical findings can provide useful information for policymakers in designing macroeconomic policies and taking government measures to improve their investment environment and attract FDI.

The study shows that government responses, economic support, containment and health policies are effective in containing viruses, reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening resilience in FDI attractiveness factors. It also indicates that foreign investors are responding positively to government measures.

This research examines the impact of lockdown stringency measures and COVID-19 cases on food and healthcare prices in six Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Turkey (BRICST) countries. This research is conducted in these countries since previous studies failed to examine the effect of COVID-19 reported cases on food and healthcare prices.

To achieve the objectives of this study, food and healthcare services were regressed against CVC and lockdown stringency measures using the dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (DARDL) model. For this purpose, we used daily data for BRICST countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Turkey.

The empirical evidence indicates that, in the long run, COVID-19 cases significantly and positively affect both food and healthcare prices in India, South Africa and China. In contrast, in the short run, COVID-19 positively affects food and healthcare prices in all countries except Russia and Turkey. Similarly, in the long run, the government stringency index (GSI) and Containment and Health Index (CHI) significantly affect health prices in India and South Africa. In contrast, GSI and CHI significantly affect healthcare prices in South Africa only in the short run. Finally, GSI and CHI significantly affect the food prices in the long run in India, South Africa and China and in the short run in South Africa only.

The widespread impact of the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) has made the world panic. COVID-19 affected all spheres of life, including food supplies and healthcare services. However, most of the empirical research failed to examine the impact of COVID-19 cases on food and healthcare prices which is the main focus of this study. Moreover, in the given context, the authors use a recently developed model that the previous studies failed to use.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of government policies adopted by the Tunisian government to cope with the COVID-19 sanitary crisis on stock market return.

The author uses daily data from March 2, 2020, to July 23, 2021.

The author finds that policies interventions have a negative impact on Tunisia's stock market, particularly stock market returns due to stringency, confinement and health measures. Also, Government announcements regarding economic has a negative impact on Tunisia's stock market but this impact is insignificant. By conducting an additional analysis, the author shows that the government interventions policies amplify the negative effect of COVID-19 on stock returns.

These results will be useful for policy authorities seeking to consider the advantages and drawbacks of government measures. Finally, a legislative proposal about the audit of public debt should be included in the Constitution to spur Tunisia's economic and social recovery.

This study contributes to the related literature in two ways: First, it is the first study to examine the impact of government actions on stock market performance. Second, it bridges a gap in the literature by investigating the case of Tunisia, because most studies focus on developed and emerging economies.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the influence that nation-states can have on the engagement of international marketing activities. The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of the institutional response to the COVID-19 pandemic on international marketing activities and to highlight the need to formally incorporate institutional economics into the study of international marketing phenomena.

The paper uses institutional economics as the environmental element of the general theory of competitive rationality to present a foundation for understanding how state actions influence marketing and international marketing activities. Data are presented and empirically tested, demonstrating the heterogeneity of government influence on personal and economic freedoms during the pandemic, both of which influenced international marketing activities. To broaden the implications of this work, we also provide anecdotal illustrations unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate the breadth of nation-state influence on international marketing activities.

Heterogeneity in nation-state formal and informal institutional elements influence international marketing activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, other incidents, unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrate the importance of contextualizing international marketing activities under a holistic institutional framework.

The paper employs the general theory of competitive rationality along with institutional economics to provide a theoretical foundation to better understand the differential impact on international marketing as a result of formal and informal institutional influences. This general framework can be employed to provide a holistic understanding of both international and cross-national marketing activities.

The purpose of this study is to assess how the information disclosed in prospectuses impacted the initial public offering (IPO) underpricing at a time of high government interference amid the ongoing pandemic.

The design of this study has several tracks, namely, a macro-level track, which is represented by the government measures to halt the pandemic; a micro-level track, which is followed by textual analysis of IPO prospectuses; and, finally, a machine learning track, in which the authors use state-of-the-art tools to improve their linear regression model.

The authors found that strict government anti-COVID-19 measures indeed contribute to the reduction of the IPO underpricing. Interestingly, the mere fact of such measures taking place is enough to take effect on financial markets, regardless of the resulting efficiency of such measures. At the micro-level, the authors show that prospectus sentiments and their significance differ across prospectus sections. Using linear regression and machine learning models, the authors find robust evidence that such sections as “Risk factors”, “Prospectus summary”, “Financial Information” and “Business” play a crucial role in explaining the underpricing. Their effect is different, namely, it turns out that the more negative “Risk factors” and “Financial Information” sentiment, the higher the resulting underpricing. Conversely, the more positive “Prospectus summary” and “Business” sentiments appear, the lower the resulting underpricing is. In addition, we used machine learning methods. Consisting of more than 580 IPO prospectuses, the study sample required modern and powerful machine learning tools like Isolation Forest for pre-processing or Random Forest Regressor and Light Gradient Boosting Model for modelling purposes, which enabled the authors to gain better results compared to the classic linear regression model.

At the micro level, this study is not confined to 2020, but also embraces 2021, the year of the record number of IPOs held. Moreover, in this paper, these were prospectuses that served as a source of management sentiment. In addition, the authors used a tailor-made government stringency index. At the micro level, basing the study on behavioural finance hypotheses, the authors conducted both separate and holistic analysis of prospectuses to assess investors’ reaction to different aspects of IPO companies as well as to the characteristics of the IPOs themselves. Lastly, the authors introduced a few innovations to the research methodology. Textual analysis was conducted on a corpus of prospectuses included in a study sample. However, the authors did not use pre-trained dictionaries, but instead opted for FLAIR, a modern open-source framework for natural language processing.

The present study examines the rationale behind the increased global presence of corporate green bonds as a green financing tool to facilitate sustainable practices and eco-friendly investing. The authors investigate the intriguing question of whether the companies that issue green bonds are valued more by investors or not, and further extend our analysis by exploring whether the green image of companies helps to minimize the value erosion during a crisis and enhance the resilience of the stocks?

To examine the association between environmental commitments and firm value, the authors use the COVID-19 crisis as an exogenous shock and create a perfect natural setting to eliminate the endogeneity bias from our estimations. Moreover, the authors use propensity score matching to choose a one-to-one match of green bond firms with a larger pool of brown bond firms and eliminate the “size effect” arising out of the disproportionate sample size of green and brown bond firms.

The results of the study indicate that green bond firms are valued more by investors compared to brown bonds firms. Hence, green bond issuance acts as a strong signal of a firm's environmental commitment and it is well recognized by the investors. One of the possible reasons for a higher value of green bond firms may be due to their ability to arrest value erosion during environmental shocks. The authors could not find any difference in the resilience of green and brown bond firms.

The study contributes to the growing literature in the area of impact investing, specifically on exponentially growing innovative instrument green bond. Our study integrates two areas of research, i.e. corporate finance and impact investing by examining the impact of green bond issuance on firm value and stock market returns. The results would help environmentally sensitive investors to devise their investment portfolios more efficiently.