{"title":"Cross-border mergers and acquisitions: The interplay of cultural differences and prior M&A activity","authors":"Fatos Radoniqi, Roger White","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the extent to which cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are affected by national cultural differences (i.e., cultural distance) and prior M&A activity. Our empirical specification follows the standard gravity framework. Estimating a series of Tobit models using bilateral data that represent 9389 mergers involving firms in 30 countries over three periods (1995–1998, 2005–2008, and 2017–2020), we find a negative but declining influence of cultural distance on cross-border M&A activity. We also find merger activity involving firms in a particular country pair is positively related to subsequent M&A activity and that this experience counteracts the hindering influence of cultural differences, which becomes insignificant after approximately ten prior mergers. Our findings are robust to sample composition, choice of periods examined, model specification, estimation technique, and alternative measurements of both cultural distance and prior M&A activity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 102008"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144167836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xiaoyuan Zhang , Hang You , Ze Zhang , Wangchun Wu
{"title":"Asset association and dynamic risk contagion under climate policy uncertainty","authors":"Xiaoyuan Zhang , Hang You , Ze Zhang , Wangchun Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101994","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101994","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the context of climate policy uncertainty, we introduce a novel discrete-time nonlinear dynamic risk contagion model. This model captures the dynamics of credit risk as it propagates among firms via a multi-path contagion mechanism, spreading risks along diverse pathways between interconnected nodes. Utilizing the Single-Index Model, the LASSO techniques, and the CoVaR method, we map out the industrial chain network and develop systemic risk indicators for firms within this network. Using these indicators, we empirically analyze the impact of climate policy uncertainty on systemic risk. Our theoretical findings underscore the presence of a steady state in networks under climate policy uncertainty. We derive the analytical expressions for the steady state in complete networks. Empirical evidence reveals that climate policy uncertainty significantly amplifies systemic risk in the industrial chain, with upstream firms contributing more to systemic risk and downstream firms experiencing greater risk exposure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 101994"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143877278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sentiment-return relation and stock price synchronicity: Firm-level versus market-level sentiment","authors":"Karam Kim , Jonathan A. Batten , Doojin Ryu","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how investor sentiment affects stock returns under different levels of stock price synchronicity. Firm-level (market-level) sentiment has a stronger impact on low- (high-) synchronicity stocks. While firm-level sentiment effects remain stable over time, market-level sentiment effects intensify across all stocks during the pandemic. Uninformed investors consistently rely more on firm-level sentiment when trading low-synchronicity stocks but shift to market-level sentiment when deciding on their participation during the pandemic. These results remain robust after controlling firm size and calendar effects, and applying an alternative market-level sentiment measure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 102007"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143907766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does the introduction of US spot Bitcoin ETFs affect spot returns and volatility of major cryptocurrencies?","authors":"Babalos Vassilios , Elie Bouri , Rangan Gupta","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper provides the first empirical evidence of whether the introduction of US spot Bitcoin ETFs affected the returns and volatility of major cryptocurrencies. Using data from December 18, 2017 to March 15, 2024, we apply an event-study methodology within a GARCH-based framework. Our results reveal a significant effect of the introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs on cryptocurrency returns and volatility. The analysis shows a positive impact for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin spot price returns around the event date. The volatility of Bitcoin and Ripple spot markets decreased following the introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which supports the stabilization hypothesis for these two cases. We also examine the volatility spillovers using a wavelet coherence approach, and reveal significant volatility spillovers from Grayscale Bitcoin ETF to Bitcoin futures and to a lesser extend to the Bitcoin spot market. Our findings enhance the limited understanding of the price discovery and functioning of the cryptocurrency markets, which could be useful for investors, regulators, and policymakers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 102006"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143852065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The anatomy of fiscal dynamics in a model with financial frictions","authors":"Yoonseok Choi","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies the role of financial frictions in generating different model dynamics in response to fiscal policy. I build financial-friction edifices on a canonical business-cycle model to quantitatively assess dynamics of macroeconomic aggregates and fiscal variables following various fiscal shocks. Models that are fit to U.S. data reveal that the presence of financial frictions is the linchpin of delivering markedly different outcomes. The model with financial frictions yields higher output multipliers and better fiscal health than the model without financial frictions for most fiscal instruments. Welfare analyses also show that welfare gains in the model with financial frictions are larger than the frictionless model. Various counterfactual analyses suggest that different financial frictions produce substantially different results. These analyses highlight the importance of accounting for financial frictions to better understand the impact of fiscal policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 102003"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nurturing nature: The role of green finance in reviving urban biodiversity","authors":"Zhiyuan Gao , Ying Zhao , Lianqing Li , Yu Hao","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>China's green finance (GF) policies have been progressively implemented and strengthened, positioning GF as a pivotal catalyst for biodiversity enhancement. This study employs the GF Innovation and Reform Zones as a quasi-experimental setting to examine the influence and underlying mechanisms of GF on biodiversity, utilizing data from 278 Chinese cities. The findings indicate that GF markedly improves urban biodiversity. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that GF positively impacts biodiversity in western cities, cities with advanced economic development, resource-centric cities, and small to medium-sized urban centers. Mechanism tests identify ecological value realization and climate change as key pathways through which GF augments biodiversity levels. Given the intricate nature and pressing need for biodiversity conservation, this study offers a theoretical framework for leveraging GF in biodiversity preservation efforts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 102005"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143839145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Oguzhan Cepni , Luis A. Gil-Alana , Rangan Gupta , Onur Polat
{"title":"Time-variation in the persistence of carbon price uncertainty: The role of carbon policy uncertainty","authors":"Oguzhan Cepni , Luis A. Gil-Alana , Rangan Gupta , Onur Polat","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.102004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We estimate models of fractional integration to determine the degree of persistence for two recently developed metrics of carbon price uncertainty: the Carbon VIX and Carbon Implied Volatility (CIV) covering the period of the 1st week of September 2013 to the 4th week of December 2022. First, we find the two metrics to be highly persistent but depicting mean-reversion with long-memory. Second, time-varying (recursive) estimation revealed that the underlying persistence is on a downward trend. Third, we show that the recent reduction in persistence of carbon price uncertainties is a result of declining carbon policy uncertainty — a metric we develop using aggregate information on squared surprises of carbon futures price of various maturities. Given that carbon price uncertainty has been shown to negatively affect decarbonization investments, our findings have important implications for the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 102004"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143835052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Market Downturns and Asymmetric Tail Risk Transmission Speed in the US: Evaluating Macroeconomic Policy Effectiveness during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Zinan Hu, Sumuya Borjigin","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101993","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101993","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how US market downturns affect the asymmetry in tail risk information transmission speed. It also evaluates how monetary and fiscal policies help mitigate this asymmetry during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Using model-free measures of bad (disaster risk) and good (swift recovery) tail risk derived from daily options data, we obtain forward-looking tail risk information. Based on the TENET model, we construct daily networks for bad and good tail risk spillovers. Empirical results show that market downturns increase the asymmetry in bad and good tail risk transmission speed. Rising market illiquidity in downturns causes negative tail risk information to transmit faster than positive signals, amplifying the asymmetry. Although fiscal and monetary policies show average mitigation effects across the sample, event analysis shows they consistently reduce this asymmetry during the early COVID-19 phase. This suggests that unconventional macroeconomic interventions during extreme downturns more effectively mitigate asymmetric information transmission.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 101993"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Natalia Alves Tavares , Paulo Vitor Jordão da Gama Silva , Marcelo Cabus Klotzle
{"title":"Investigation of the intentional and spurious herding effects in the cryptocurrency market with global events","authors":"Natalia Alves Tavares , Paulo Vitor Jordão da Gama Silva , Marcelo Cabus Klotzle","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101992","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101992","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The study aims to investigate the intentional and spurious herd effects in the cryptocurrency market, considering the most popular events globally, according to Google Trends, from 2018 to 2022. Although the study of herd behavior is explored in the cryptocurrency market, there has not yet been a distinction between these factors' typology and real-world events. We use 100 cryptocurrencies to analyze the Absolute Transversal Deviation (CSAD). As an innovative way, we estimated the regressions considering both Premium CSAD and CRIX CSAD for the herd periods and with events using the Zivot-Andrew test. We observe the occurrence of herd behavior, spurious (rational) and intentional (irrational), in the period of total analysis and the events, with a higher prevalence of the intentional effect. We noted that the CSAD Spurious Premium model was more significant for events before and after the structural break than the CSAD models using the CRIX index.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 101992"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143783901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Market reactions to the Basel reforms: Implications for shareholders, creditors, and taxpayers","authors":"Jonas Krettek","doi":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101990","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qref.2025.101990","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper evaluates the impact of postcrisis financial risk regulation introduced through Basel II.5, Basel III, and Basel IV on European Union (EU) and United States (U.S.) bank shareholders and creditors. Specifically, an event study is used to analyze 15 market events, 26 credit events, and 13 liquidity events. This approach allows for an assessment of the impact on profitability and risk, providing a basis for deriving the effectiveness of these regulations in reducing risks for the public sector and taxpayers. Significant negative stock market reactions by EU banks in response to market and credit risk regulations are observed. In contrast, U.S. banks exhibit no clear significant stock market reactions, largely due to the Dodd-Frank Act and especially more lenient regulatory implementation. EU creditors responded to credit risk regulation with significantly rising credit default swap (CDS) spreads, signaling higher risks due to diminished bailout expectations. The cross-sectional analysis highlights the importance of bank- and country-specific factors in explaining heterogeneous reactions. The results suggest that the Basel reforms have successfully shifted risks from taxpayers back to shareholders and reduced moral hazard among creditors. However, the significant differences between the EU and U.S. market reactions raise concerns about the establishment of a level playing field, underscoring the need for more consistent implementation across jurisdictions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47962,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 101990"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143680718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}