RESUMO
The Global Fear Index (GFI) is a measure of fear/panic based on the number of people infected and deaths due to COVID-19. This paper aims to examine the interconnection or interdependencies between the GFI and a set of global indexes related to the financial and economic activities associated with natural resources, raw materials, agribusiness, energy, metals, and mining, such as: the S&P Global Resource Index, the S&P Global Agribusiness Equity Index, the S&P Global Metals and Mining Index, and the S&P Global 1200 Energy Index. To this end, we first apply several common tests: Wald exponential, Wald mean, Nyblom, and Quandt Likelihood Ratio. Subsequently, we apply Granger causality using a DCC-GARCH model. Data for the global indices are daily from 3 February 2020 to 29 October 2021. The empirical results obtained show that the volatility of the GFI Granger causes the volatility of the other global indices, except for the Global Resource Index. Moreover, by considering heteroskedasticity and idiosyncratic shocks, we show that the GFI can be used to predict the co-movement of the time series of all the global indices. Additionally, we quantify the causal interdependencies between the GFI and each of the S&P global indices using Shannon and Rényi transfer entropy flow, which is comparable to Granger causality, to confirm directionality more robustly The main conclusion of this research is that financial and economic activity related to natural resources, raw materials, agribusiness, energy, metals, and mining were affected by the fear/panic caused by COVID-19 cases and deaths.
RESUMO
This paper is aimed at obtaining estimates of pension coverage or retirement retreat indicators for the Mexican population over 65 years, and assessing the impact of pension systems in transitions to retirement of adults in middle and advanced ages in Mexico. To do this, microeconomic data from the Mexican National Survey of Health and Aging are used. The econometric analysis carried out is focused on identifying socio-demographic, economic, and institutional factors that are associated with having access to a retirement pension or to rely on other sources of income. Moreover, the relationship between social protection and labor market is examined. The main result of this research is that in Mexico the transition to retirement from the labor market in the advanced stages of the life cycle, measured by having access to retirement pensions, are limited due to the characteristics of highly contributory pension schemes, which favor the population with formal and more stable career paths associated to: 1) gender characteristics, 2) educational opportunities and 3) potential integration into the labor market.