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The global economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused the closure of countless ethnic minority businesses (EMBs) worldwide, partly due to the public policy responses. This paper investigates whether EMBs’ entrepreneurial orientation (EO) mediates the impact of public policy responses to COVID-19 on their survival.

Utilizing institutional theory, the authors developed a novel conceptual framework that divides policy responses to COVID-19 into aggressive (imposing restrictions on movement, e.g. lockdowns) and less aggressive policy responses (not imposing restrictions on movement, e.g. social distancing). The authors then surveyed intra-regional EMBs, specifically businesses owned by ethnic minorities in the Kano and Katsina provinces of Nigeria, and analysed the data using structural equation modelling and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The authors found that intra-regional EMBs in developing countries are very vulnerable to the public policy responses imposed by governments to curb COVID-19. Aggressive policy responses have a more significant negative effect on the survival of intra-regional EMBs than their less aggressive counterparts. Furthermore, the authors found that EO as a crisis response strategy significantly supports intra-regional EMBs in managing their vulnerability to the hostile institutional environment, reduces the adverse effect of public policy responses and stimulates their survival during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper contributes to the institutional theory of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)/entrepreneurship and the literature on EMBs by showing the role of EO in mediating the effects of COVID-19 institutional policies on the survival of intra-regional EMBs.

Using data for a sample of advanced and developing countries, this paper aims to study the responses of monetary growth and the growth of government spending to external spillovers, namely, the growth of exports and imports, movement in the real effective exchange rate and the change in the oil price. The objective is to study movements in domestic policy variables in open economies that are vulnerable to trade and commodity price shocks.

The analysis evaluates correlations between the responses of the policy variables to external spillovers. Further, the analysis studies the effects of indicators of economic performance on domestic policy responses to various shifts across countries.

Higher variability of real and nominal growth increases the fiscal policy response to external spillovers with an aim to stem further variability. Monetary policies appear to be more responsive to trend price inflation with an aim to stem further inflationary pressures. Fiscal policy’s reaction to trend price inflation aims at striking a balance between countering potential inflationary pressures, as well as recessionary conditions attributed to the various spillovers.

Overall, the evidence points to the importance of trade and commodity price shifts to the design of domestic policies. Further indicators of economic performance differentiate the degree of policy responses to trade and commodity price developments with a goal to stem inflationary pressures and reduce aggregate uncertainty.

A vector autoregression model estimated on US data before and after 1980 documents systematic differences in the response of short- and long-term interest rates, corporate bond spreads and durable spending to news total factor productivity shocks. Interest rates across the maturity spectrum broadly increase in the pre-1980s and broadly decline in the post-1980s. Corporate bond spreads decline significantly, and durable spending rises significantly in the post-1980 period while the opposite short-run response is observed in the pre-1980 period. Measuring expectations of future monetary policy rates conditional on a news shock suggests that the Federal Reserve has adopted a restrictive stance before the 1980s with the goal of retaining control over inflation while adopting a neutral/accommodative stance in the post-1980 period.

The purpose of this scoping review is to analyse comparative studies on social-policy measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in Global North welfare states. The authors also consider the potential influence of the regimes on the responses.

The authors conducted a scoping review of six databases including peer-reviewed comparative studies. In an iterative process with exact inclusion criteria, the authors screened 699 titles/abstracts/articles and found 16 comparative research articles to be included in the review and analysis. The review summarises the main themes of the comparative articles and the articles' typical features.

The results show that social-policy measures were directed specifically at working-age people to minimise income loss and to save jobs. The pandemic also increased care-related responsibilities, necessitating the expansion of current policies and the implementation of new instruments. Despite the differences in responses between universalistic and residual welfare states, the influence of welfare regimes on COVID-19 social-policy measures remains unclear. The emergency responses in the different regimes varied widely in terms of coverage.

The results of this review provide a basis on which to conduct future studies, identify new research topics and knowledge gaps and inspire new research questions and hypotheses. Given the accumulation of scientific knowledge in the area of social-policy measures, the need for systematic reviews will grow in the future.

The authors identified three main themes: changes in employment protection, changes in care-related income protection and the potential influence of welfare-state regimes on COVID-19-related measures.

This chapter analyzes governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in a highly decentralized federal country. Canada has a decentralized approach in many policy areas, including health care, in which provinces are the primary decision-makers and service providers. This decentralized health-care system allowed provinces to respond according to regional and local contexts and needs. The capacity building and the policy learning related to previous crises and horizontal coordination were key to policy responses to the pandemic. Moreover, unlike other countries, Canada did not centralize decisions throughout the pandemic, and did not reinforce competition and uncoordinated actions. The federal government also has had a central role coordinating COVID-19 policy responses. Nevertheless, Canada faced some challenges stemming from the lack of uniformity across the country, especially related to regional and local restrictions, enforcement mechanisms, testing, and travel restrictions.

This paper investigates the impact of a monetary policy shock on the production of a sample of 312 industries in manufacturing, mining and utilities in the United States using a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model.

The authors use a FAVAR model that builds on Bernanke et al. (2005) and Boivin et al. (2009). The main assumption in this model is that the dynamics of a large set of macro variables are captured by some observed and unobserved common factors. The unobserved factors are extracted from a large set of macroeconomic data. The key advantage of using this model is that it allows extracting the impulse responses of a wide range of macroeconomic variables to structural shocks in the federal funds rate.

The results indicate that industries exhibit differential responses to an unanticipated monetary policy tightening. In general, manufacturing industries appear to be more sensitive compared to mining, and utility industries and durable manufacturing industries are found to be more sensitive than those within nondurable and other manufacturing industries to a monetary policy shock. While all industries respond to the policy shock, most of the responses are reversed between 12 and 22 months.

The implication of our results is that monetary policy can be used to impact most US industries for four years and beyond. The existence of disparate responses across industries underscores the difficulty of implementing a monetary policy that will generate the same impact across industries. As the effects of the policy are distinct, policymakers may want to attend to the unique impacts and implement industry-specific policy.

The study is important in the context of the current challenges in the US economy caused by the spread of coronavirus. For example, to tackle the current pandemic, the researchers are trying to come up with cures for COVID-19. A considerable response of the chemical industry that provides materials to pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing to the monetary policy shock implies that an expansionary monetary policy may facilitate an invention and adequate supply of the cure later on. The same policy may not effectively stimulate production in apparel or leather product industries that are being hard hit by the pandemic.

The study contributes to the literature in broadly two aspects. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that investigates the impact of a monetary policy shock on a sample of 312 industries in manufacturing, mining and utilities in the US. Second, to identify structural shocks and investigate the effects of monetary policy shocks on economic activity, the authors diverge from the literature's traditional approach, i.e. the vector autoregression (VAR) method and use a FAVAR method. The FAVAR provides a comprehensive description of the impact of a monetary policy innovation on different industries.

The authors examine the spillover effects of CEO removal on the corporate financial policies of competing firms among S&P 1500 firms.

The authors used generalized estimating equations (GEE) on a sample of S&P 1,500 firms from 2000 to 2018 to test this study's research hypotheses. Return on assets (ROA), investment policy, and payout policy are used as proxies for corporate policies.

The authors found an increase in ROA and dividend payout in the immediate aftermath. Further, this study's hypothesis does not hold for R&D expenditure and net-working capital as the authors found an insignificant change in them in the immediate aftermath. However, the authors found a significant reduction in capital expenditure, supporting this study's hypothesis in the context of investment policy. Institutional investors and product similarity moderated the spillover effect on corporate policies (ROA, dividend payout, and capital expenditure).

The authors address a novel aspect of CEO performance-induced removal due to poor performance, i.e., the response of other CEOs to CEO performance-induced removal. This study's findings add to the literature supporting the bright side of CEOs' response to CEO performance-induced removal in peer firms due to poor performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks vary with the degree of macroeconomic uncertainty.

The authors use quarterly US data from 1960 to 2017 and employ the Self-Exciting Interacted VAR (SEIVAR) to compute nonlinear generalized impulse response functions (GIRFs) to an orthogonalized government spending shock during tranquil and in uncertain times. The parsimonious design of the SEIVAR enables us to focus on extreme deciles of the uncertainty distribution and to control for the financing side of the government budget, monetary policy, financial frictions and consumer confidence.

Fiscal spending has positive output effects in tranquil times, but is contractionary during times of heightened macroeconomic uncertainty. The results indicate an important role of the endogenous response of macroeconomic uncertainty. Investigating different government spending purposes, only increases in research and development expenditures reduce uncertainty and boost output during uncertain times.

The authors contribute to the literature in using a method which allows to control for a large set of confounding factors and accounts for the uncertainty response.

According to the Government Response tracker (oxCGRT) index, the strictest policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic from January 2020 to May 2022 belong to Italy, China, Hong Kong, Greece, Austria, Peru, Singapore and Malaysia. The main question is: “this level of strictness has been able to reduce the uncertainty of the stock market?”

To achieve this goal, the authors investigated the effect of oxCGRT index, and the growth rate of COVID-19 confirms cases on stock market uncertainty from January 2020 to May 2022 in the GARCH, EGARCH and TGARCH models.

Among these countries, the oxCGRT index has reduced uncertainty in the stock market only in Malaysia and Singapore. This result says an appropriate pattern of applying government policy responses is more important than the degree of stringency.

The study will contribute to the existing literature by examining the impact of the comprehensive oxCGRT index on the uncertainty of the stock market.