JST September 2021 with the topic: “When the Markets Get COVID: Contagion, Viruses, and Information Diffusion?”

As part of the plan to organize the series of seminars "Economics and Business: Agendas for the Uncertain World", on the afternoon of September 9, 2021, the Journal of Asian Business and Economics Studies (JABES) continues to successfully organize the September webinar with the presentation of Professor Mariano Massimiliano Croce on the topic “When the Markets Get COVID: Contagion, Viruses, and Information Diffusion?”. The webinar attracted more than 70 researchers from Asia, who are often present in scientific events of the Journal.

Professor Mariano Massimiliano Croce is a professor at Bocconi University (Italy), Co-Editor-in-Chief of Economics Letters and is the author of many articles published in leading academic journals such as American Economic Review, The Journal of Political Economy, The Journal of Finance…

On the topic “When the Markets Get COVID: Contagion, Viruses, and Information Diffusion?”, Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce and colleagues have studied and shown that pandemics occur with increasing frequency, especially in the period after 1980; Especially, from 2019 to now, the Covid-19 pandemic has been taking place all over the world.

The pandemic not only affects human health but also has a substantial impact on global financial markets. Starting from the suggestion of Mr. Barker (2016) on journalistic data collection – articles that have circulated for decades in most countries and for centuries in some countries, Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce and colleagues developed a new dataset from Twitter (from the intensity of news coverage on Twitter, and the attention to tweets posted by major newspapers with keywords like “Coronavirus” and “ Covid-19”) to examine how major financial markets react to news about the risk of global pandemic spread taking into account local epidemic conditions.

Through the quickness and convenience of Twitter, tweets can be posted very quickly, creating a much greater capacity to convey information than other media. From this collected data, the research results of Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce et al. showed:

The stock market, in general, is affected almost immediately by the published information about Covid-19. This influence is more substantial in emerging countries with skyrocketing profit growth; In the case of the market only consisting of negative news, profits increased slightly in developed countries while recording a high increase in emerging countries. For countries with increased rates of Covid-19 infection, both markets tend to increase profits; However, while developed countries reacted immediately to the news, in emerging markets, profits gradually increased and recorded the highest increase after 45 minutes of the information being published. Besides, the trading volume increased before the announcement time and adjusted down after that; the reaction level was also recorded more strongly in emerging countries.
For government bonds, during the ±60-minute period surrounding the announcement, there were no significant adjustments in bond yields in the developed world. As for emerging countries, government bonds fall in price before the announcement, and then correct up. However, cumulative returns are close to zero in both groups of countries. This observation is quite important because it shows that cash uncertainty is an important and decisive factor for the market; Simultaneously, it shows that government bonds are not affected much by news about the epidemic.
When observing the reaction to the country's internal information on the Covid-19 epidemic, Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce et al. found that bonds are not significantly affected while stocks tend to decrease in price before the announcement and then increase price after.

To conclude the presentation of Mr. Mariano Massimiliano Croce, the researchers who participated in the Seminar asked many questions and discussed enthusiastically how to collect and analyze data. At the same time, they thanked Mr. Mariano Massimiliano Croce for interesting research suggestions, as well as predictive contributions to the effects of possible future pandemics.

After nearly two short but concise hours, the September JST was well organized. Notably, a young researcher shared his feelings: “This is one of the best presentations on global finance I have ever heard because the theme given by Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce's presentation is very topical and his presentation is concise and easy to understand."

Some photos of the webinar:

Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce presents the research topic

The researchers focused on the presentation of Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce

Researchers engaged in the lively discussion

Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai – Editor-in-Chief and MSc. Huynh Luu Duc Toan – Assistant Editor-in-Chief of JABES, in turn, showed their gratitude for the presentation of Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce

Prof. Mariano Massimiliano Croce took photos with researchers attending the September JST

To continue the series of seminars "Economics and Business: Agendas for the Uncertain World", JABES Seminar Talks (JST 2021) will continue to take place on October 12, 2021, with the presence and presentation of Professor Klaus F. Zimmermann – Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics (ABS: 3, ABDC: A) with the theme “Globalization, Political Regimes, and the Covid-19 Pandemic”. Professor Klaus F. Zimmermann is a German economist and professor emeritus of economics at Bonn University. In addition, he is a professor emeritus at Maastricht University, the Free University of Berlin, and Renmin University of China in China, and is president of the Global Labor Organization. His research interests include population, labor, development and migration. We look forward to your participation in our JST 2021 series of seminars. For registration and other details, please visit the following link: shorturl.at/fsxJ1. We hope that this JST series of talks will bring valuable ideas for the future research of all.

More information

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