The onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and previous financial and currency crises have heightened interest in understanding the nature of the interaction of stock market and exchange rate volatility. This paper aims to investigate the interdependence and volatility transmissions between the stock and foreign exchange markets for South Africa over the period of 1979:01–2021:08, including the effect the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the interdependence and volatility transmissions. Through the use of bivariate Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) modeling, the empirical outcomes from this study provide strong evidence in support of the “stock-orientated” approach, where significant price and volatility spillovers propagate from the stock market into the foreign exchange market, whilst evidence of the “flow-orientated” approach is seen in the second moment and significant shock and asymmetric spillovers from the exchange to stock market are found. The results support the asymmetric and long-range persistence volatility spillover effect and show strong evidence of contagion between stock and foreign exchange markets. These spillovers became more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, confirming heightened contagion in these markets during the periods of crisis. The results heed important implications for not only policymakers who are concerned by the contagion across financial markets and better regulations of these markets to promote economic growth, but also investors and fund managers who seek to hedge investment risks in South Africa.
Inflation uncertainty causes macroeconomic ills and instability in the economy. This paper investigates if rising levels of inflation uncertainty serve as a source of higher inflation outcomes or vice versa, to determine if inflation uncertainty is potentially a self‐fulfilling prophecy. In addition, this paper examines the impact of inflation targeting, implemented in South Africa in February 2000, on the level of inflation and inflation uncertainty. Using a generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and GARCH‐in‐mean model and monthly data spanning the period 1970:01 to 2022:05, the empirical outcomes from this study suggest the existence of a bi‐directional relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty, with strong evidence in favour of the Friedman–Ball hypothesis and weaker evidence in support of the Cukierman–Meltzer hypothesis. This study also finds that inflation targeting has contributed significantly to reducing the level of inflation and inflation uncertainty since its adoption as policy framework. Time‐varying Granger causality tests accounting for instabilities underscore the above results, namely that inflation uncertainty led to increased inflation uncertainty in the full pre‐inflation targeting period, whereas increased uncertainty led to increased inflation only during the decade preceding inflation targeting. The results heed important policy implications, as it is imperative that inflation is kept low, stable and predictable.
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