Global risks, the macroeconomy, and asset prices.

We propose a novel index of global risks awareness (GRAI) based on the most concerning risks-classified in five categories (economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological)-reported by the World Economic Forum (WEF) according to the potential impact and likelihood occurrence. The degree of public concern toward these risks is captured by Google search volumes on topics having the same or similar wording of that one of the WEF Global Risk Report. The dynamics of our GRAI exhibits several spillover episodes and indicates that concerns on the five different categories of global risks are-on average-highly interconnected.

Using past epidemics to estimate the macroeconomic implications of COVID-19: A bad idea!

This work is intended to show that past epidemic scenarios are not suitable to estimate the macroeconomic impact of the new 2019 coronavirus. Using five centuries of macroeconomic data for England and a unique dataset on epidemics and other significant events (i.e.

From COVID-19 herd immunity to investor herding in international stock markets: The role of government and regulatory restrictions.

We study if government response to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic can mitigate investor herding behaviour in international stock markets. Our empirical analysis is informed by daily stock market data from 72 countries from both developed and emerging economies in the first quarter of 2020. The government response to the COVID-19 outbreak is measured by means of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, where higher scores are associated with greater stringency.