In recent times, there has been increase in climate change protest across the globe. However, whether decrease in emissions is connected with climate change protest or not is yet to be documented in the literature. Consequently, the aim of this article is to fill this gap by examining ex-post detection of how climate change protests and its interconnectedness with CO2 emissions. Using the Bai and Perron (1998) structural break test, we estimate the number of breaks as well as the date of such structural breaks in CO2 emissions series for 41 countries. Our aim is to match the date of the climate change protests to those of the structural breaks. We observe that climate change protests are fairly consistent with the dates of breaks in Europe and Asia, but not in BRICS economies or US, Canada and other countries. Therefore, this method allows us to solve a gap in the energy industry related to the modelling and correct allocation of positive shocks in CO2 emissions to climate change protests.

Given the effects COVID-19 pandemic on the financial sectors across the world, this study examined the reaction of stock returns of 201 firms listed in the Nigerian Stock Exchange to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown policy. We deployed both Pooled OLS and Panel VAR as estimation methods. Generally, the results from POLS show the stock market returns of the Nigerian firms reacted negatively more to the global COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths than the domestic COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths and lockdown policy. The results of the impulse response functions revealed that the effects of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths and lockdown policy shocks on stock returns oscillate between negative and positive before the stock market returns converge to the equilibrium in the long run. The FEVD results showed that growth in the COVID-19 confirmed cases, deaths and lockdown policy shocks explained little variations in stock market returns. Given our finding, we advocate for the relaxation of policy of lockdown and the combine use of monetary and fiscal policies to mitigate the negative effect of COVID-19 pandemic on stock market returns in Nigeria.

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The persistent debate among policy makers and academics around combating the high rates of poverty and income inequality can be further illuminated by understanding how tourism contributes to inclusive growth, especially in developing economies. Tourism sector can be regarded as one of the key contributors to inclusive growth and where it has the capacity to generate prospects for productive employment. The goal of this article is thus to investigate the link between inclusive growth and tourism in the African context. To do this, we utilized a recent panel vector autoregression (pVAR) and data for 45 African countries spanning the period 1995 to 2019. Thus, by the error variance decomposition and impulse response functions, our results showed a weak positive effect of international tourism arrivals and the composite tourism indicator on inclusive growth, while tourism receipts and tourism expenditure insignificantly decreases inclusive growth in the sampled African economies. Our result is further supported by the panel system generalized method of moments (GMM). We provide some policy implications from our findings.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of health and other exogenous shocks on stock markets in Africa. Particularly, the authors examined the resilience of the major stock markets in 12 African economies during the recent global pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses the recent panel vector autoregressive model, which enables us to capture the response of stock markets to shocks in COVID-19, commodity markets and exchange rate. For robustness, the authors also analysed the panel Granger causality test. Data was obtained for the period ranging from 2 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. Findings The results show that the growth in COVID-19 cases and deaths do not have any substantial impact on the stock market returns of these economies. In terms of commodity markets, the authors find that gold price has a negative contemporaneous effect on stock returns, but the effect fizzles out around the fifth day while crude oil price, on the other hand, has a significant positive simult aneous impact on stock returns and also converges around the fifth day. The authors further find that the exchange rate has a contemporaneous and nonlinear effect on stock returns and seems to be more dramatic when compared with the other variables. Overall, the results show that stock markets in Africa appear to be flexible and resilient against the COVID-19 outbreak but are affected by other exogenous shocks such as volatile commodity prices and the foreign exchange market. The effect is, however, short-lived – between one to five days. Practical implications Following the study’s findings, policies should be put in place to support financial markets by way of hedging against commodity instability and securing domestic currency financing. Policymakers are also recommended to concentrate on managing the uncertainties around their exchange rate markets and develop robust and efficient domestic financial markets to encourage local and foreign investors. Originality/value Several studies have been carried out on the effects of disasters (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) on stock markets, but only a few studies have examined the resilience of stock markets to health and other exogenous shocks. This study’s attempt is not only to examine the impact of COVID-19 health shocks on stock markets but also to analyse the resilience of the sampled stock markets. The authors also analyse the resilience of stock markets to commodity markets and exchange rates shocks.