This paper examines the dependence structure between the emerging stock markets of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and influential global factors (the S&P 500 index, the commodity markets, the global stock market uncertainty and the US economic policy uncertainty). Using the quantile regression approach, our results for the period from September 1997 to September 2013 show that the BRICS stock markets exhibit asymmetric dependence with the global stock market and this dependence has not changed since the onset of the recent global financial crisis. Moreover, oil prices display a symmetric tail independence with all those BRICS markets (except that of South Africa), even though the dependence between oil and BRICS markets significantly increased with the onset of the financial crisis. The gold price returns co-move with those of the BRICS markets at both the upper and lower tails (except for Russia and China) but the degree of comovement has decreased since the crisis. Finally, the stock market uncertainty (VIX) is found to drive the stock returns in a bear market but this relationship is insignificant in a bull market. On the other hand, the economic policy uncertainty has no impact on the BRICS stock markets both before and since the onset of the financial crisis. These results have implications for international investors in terms of risk management which should vary according to changes in the economic and financial global factors.

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This paper explores the relationship between trade openness and CO 2 emissions by incorporating economic growth as an additional and potential determinant of this relationship for three groups of 105 high, middle and low income countries. We apply the Pedroni (1999) and Westerlund (2007) panel cointegration tests and find that the three variables are cointegrated in the long run. Trade openness impedes environmental quality for the global, high income, middle and low income panels but the impact varies in these diverse groups of countries. The panel VECM causality results highlights a feedback effect between trade openness and carbon emissions at the global level and the middle income countries but trade openness Granger causes CO 2 emissions for the high income and low income countries. Policy implications are also provided.JEL Classification: Q5

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Past studies suggest that the Islamic …nance system is only weakly linked or even decoupled from conventional markets. If this statement is true, then this system may provide a cushion against potential losses resulting from probable future …nancial crises. In this article, we make use of heteroscedasticity-robust linear Granger causality and nonlinear Granger causality tests to examine the links between the Islamic and global conventional stock markets, and between the Islamic stock market and several global economic and …nancial shocks. Our …ndings reveal evidence of signi…cant linear and nonlinear causality between the Islamic and conventional stock markets but more strongly from the Islamic stock market to the other markets. They also show potent causality between the Islamic stock market and …nancial and risk factors. This evidence leads to the rejection of the hypothesis of decoupling of the Islamic market from their conventional counterparts, thereby reduces the portfolio bene…ts from diversi…cation with Sharia-based markets. A striking result shows a connection between the Islamic stock market and interest rates and interestbearing securities, which is inconsistent with the Sharia rules. The results also suggest that modeling Islamic stock markets should be done within a nonlinear VAR system and not through a regression equation.