This paper investigates the nonlinear dynamic co-movements between gold returns, stock market returns and stock market volatility during the recent global financial crisis for the UK (FTSE 100), the US (S&P 500) and Japan (NIKKEI 225). Initially, the bivariate dynamic relationships between i) gold returns and stock market returns and ii) gold returns and stock market volatility are tested; both of these relationships are further investigated in the multivariate nonlinear settings by including changes in the three-month LIBOR rates. Current evidence in this research area is limited because of the assumption of a unidirectional relationship between the gold returns, and stock market returns/volatility. In this paper correlation integrals based on the bivariate model show significant evidence of nonlinear feedback effect among the variables during the financial crisis period for all the countries understudy. Very limited evidence of significant feedback is found during the pre-crisis period. Results from the multivariate tests including changes in the LIBOR rates provide results similar to the bivariate results. These results imply that gold may not perform well as a safe haven during the financial crisis period due to the bidirectional interdependence between gold returns and, stock returns as well as stock market volatility. However, gold may be used as a hedge against stock market returns and volatility in stable financial conditions.

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This paper investigates the impact of the US economic uncertainty on the business cycles (changes in the industrial production) of twelve European Union (EU) countries before and during the global financial crisis. Empirical tests are conducted using the linear and nonlinear causality tests, impulse response function and variance decomposition. Results show ample evidence of causality from the US uncertainty to EU business cycles only when the crisis period is included in the analysis. Both the linear and non-linear tests confirm the significance of US uncertainty as a short-term predictor of business cycles of the EU.

This paper examines the role of exchange rate volatility in determining real imports. As a robustness check, it further explores the impact of the recent global financial crisis which is a period characterized by heightened exchange rate volatility. More specifically, we investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility on UK real imports from Germany, Japan and the US during the period January 1991 -March 2013. In contrast to most studies which focus on bilateral trade, we additionally explore the third country exchange rate volatility effect on UK imports. To capture the nonlinear features which often characterize macroeconomic data, we employ the asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration. Our results suggest that exchange rate volatility plays an important role and reveal that there is a significant effect of the recent financial crisis on UK imports. This finding is consistent when we test for the third country volatility effect. Finally, we find that there is a significant causal relationship between exchange rate volatility and UK imports both in bilateral tests and in tests which account for the third country exchange rate volatility. JEL Classification: F1, F10Keywords: Real imports, Exchange Rate Volatility, Asymmetric Cointegration, Financial Crisis 1 We thank two anonymous referees for several useful comments and suggestions. We also thank the participants at

The performance of the housing market is currently considered a measure of economic activity. This research explores the connectedness vs. the ripple effect hypothesis in the current house pricing literature. Using linear causality and nonlinear causality tests we show significant bidirectional dependence between the London house prices and other UK regions’ house prices except for Northern Ireland and Wales in contrast to the existing literature where more evidence of ripple effect is reported. Furthermore, linear and non-linear forecasting tests back these results. This result has important implications for policymakers and investors.