The Unassuming Economist

From a paper by Muhammad Ibrahim Shah, Matteo Foglia, Umer Shahzad, and Zeeshan Fareed:

“This paper investigates how oil price, COVID-19, and global energy innovation can affect carbon emissions under time- and frequency-varying perspectives. We contribute to the literature by being the first research to document the relationship between these variables in the short and long run (dynamically) at different frequencies in a multivariate context, thus providing a more detailed picture of the forces driving CO₂ emissions. For this purpose, we use a novel methodology, i.e., the wavelet local multiple correlation (WLMC) recently developed by Polanco-Martínez et al. (2020). The results provide fresh evidence of long-run asymmetric dynamic correlations, highlighting how the oil price plays a key role in the dynamics of CO₂ emissions. Moreover, we find that, during the long period, there is a strong negative co-movement between CO₂ and the global energy innovation index, i.e., more investment in clean energy induces less emission. Supported by our findings, this research suggests crucial policy implications and insights for the governments worldwide in their efforts to revive their economies amidst the pandemic and environmental uncertainties.”

From a paper by Roy Cerqueti, Raffaele Mattera, and Saverio Storani:

“This paper develops a class of complex network-based models whose interconnected nodes are commodities. We assume that the considered commodities are linked on the ground of the similarities of risk profiles and correlations of their returns. In this framework, we explore the resilience of the networks — i.e., their ability to absorb exogenous microscopic shocks. To this aim, we assume that high levels of resilience are associated with small variations of the community structure of the network when an exogenous shock occurs — hence, assuming that the stability of the networked commodities is measured through the maintenance of their connection levels. Shocks are conceptualized as impulsive modifications of the links among the considered commodities. The employed methodological instrument is the clustering coefficient, which is a nodal centrality measure describing the way the adjacent of the nodes are mutually connected. The theoretical proposal is empirically tested over a large set of commodities of different nature.”

From paper by Eliphas Ndou & Nombulelo Gumata:

“This paper estimates various inflation threshold and structural VAR models to investigate the passthrough of oil prices to consumer price inflation in South Africa when inflation is in the 3–6 percent inflation target band compared to when it is above 6 percent. The paper uses monthly data from 2001M1 to 2022M12. We find that the oil price passthrough to inflation is about three times lower when inflation is within the 3–6 percent target band compared to when it is above the 6 percent. Thus, under the inflation targeting framework, the 3–6 percent inflation target band has induced a structural change in the oil price and inflation relationship in South Africa. In addition, a one percentage point oil price inflation shock raises inflation by 0.11 percentage points when inflation is below 4.5 percent compared to 0.43 percentage points above this threshold. These findings imply that the oil price passthrough coefficient in the Bank forecasting model should be half the size when inflation is within 3-6 percent compared to when inflation isabove 6 percent”

From a paper by Luca Bettarelli, Davide Furceri, Prakash Loungani, Jonathan Ostry and Loredana Pisano:

“In this paper, we first test the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, using a large sample of approximately 190 advanced and developing countries, over a period of 34 years (1989-2022). We find that (CO 2 ) emissions respond positively to increasing income per capita, up to a turning point of approximately US$25,000. In a departure from the previous literature, we allow the relationship between economic development and emissions to depend on the stringency of environmental regulation.”

From a paper by Cristian Mogo Castro:

“This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions in Germany during the period 1990-2019, aiming to determine whether there has been absoulute and sufficient decoupling to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. The results suggest that Germany experienced strong decoupling between GDP ans CO₂ emissions, associated with technological transformations, climate policies, and improvements in productive efficiency. However, the observed decoupling rate is insufficient to meet the climate targerts of limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5ºC, 1.7ºC, and 2ºC.”