IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v59y2022ics0275531921001331.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Digital Gold” and geopolitics

Author

Listed:
  • Selmi, Refk
  • Bouoiyour, Jamal
  • Wohar, Mark E.

Abstract

There is a growing empirical literature on Bitcoin and gold safe haven properties with respect to financial risks and macroeconomic news but very scarce literature regarding geopolitical risks. This paper provides a fresh insight into the Bitcoin safe haven status, in comparison to gold. We, first, propose a geopolitical risk composite indicator based on various sources of geopolitical risks. A Principal Component Analysis is conducted to group the information on these indicators. Second, a dynamic Markov-switching copula model (which accommodates a dynamic link between the developed geopolitical risk index and Bitcoin and gold price dynamics within low and high risk regimes) is used. We show that both Bitcoin and gold respond positively to the composite geopolitical risk indicator when risk is high. This underscores that both Bitcoin and gold have the ability to act as safe havens for assets whose valuations plummet during times of violent geopolitical conflicts. But such properties seem to be conditional upon different categories of geopolitical risks.

Suggested Citation

  • Selmi, Refk & Bouoiyour, Jamal & Wohar, Mark E., 2022. "“Digital Gold” and geopolitics," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:59:y:2022:i:c:s0275531921001331
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2021.101512
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531921001331
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2021.101512?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christos Kollias & Stephanos Papadamou & Apostolos Stagiannis, 2010. "Armed Conflicts And Capital Markets: The Case Of The Israeli Military Offensive In The Gaza Strip," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 357-365.
    2. Reboredo, Juan C., 2013. "Is gold a safe haven or a hedge for the US dollar? Implications for risk management," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2665-2676.
    3. Bouoiyour, Jamal & Selmi, Refk & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Measuring the response of gold prices to uncertainty: An analysis beyond the mean," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 105-116.
    4. Baur, Dirk G. & McDermott, Thomas K., 2010. "Is gold a safe haven? International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1886-1898, August.
    5. Eldor, Rafi & Melnick, Rafi, 2004. "Financial markets and terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 367-386, June.
    6. Garcia, René & Tsafack, Georges, 2011. "Dependence structure and extreme comovements in international equity and bond markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1954-1970, August.
    7. Dirk G. Baur & Brian M. Lucey, 2010. "Is Gold a Hedge or a Safe Haven? An Analysis of Stocks, Bonds and Gold," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 217-229, May.
    8. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi, 2019. "Should Bitcoin be used to help devastated economies? Evidence from Greece," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(1), pages 513-520.
    9. Selmi, Refk & Mensi, Walid & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Bouoiyour, Jamal, 2018. "Is Bitcoin a hedge, a safe haven or a diversifier for oil price movements? A comparison with gold," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 787-801.
    10. Corbet, Shaen & Hou, Yang & Hu, Yang & Lucey, Brian & Oxley, Les, 2021. "Aye Corona! The contagion effects of being named Corona during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    11. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Does Bitcoin hedge global uncertainty? Evidence from wavelet-based quantile-in-quantile regressions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 87-95.
    12. Lorán Chollete & Andréas Heinen & Alfonso Valdesogo, 2009. "Modeling International Financial Returns with a Multivariate Regime-switching Copula," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 437-480, Fall.
    13. Elie Bouri & Rangan Gupta & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2022. "Jumps in Geopolitical Risk and the Cryptocurrency Market: The Singularity of Bitcoin," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 150-161, February.
    14. Joscha Beckmann & Theo Berger & Robert Czudaj, 2019. "Gold price dynamics and the role of uncertainty," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 663-681, April.
    15. Reuven Glick & Alan M. Taylor, 2010. "Collateral Damage: Trade Disruption and the Economic Impact of War," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 102-127, February.
    16. Su, Chi-Wei & Qin, Meng & Tao, Ran & Shao, Xue-Feng & Albu, Lucian Liviu & Umar, Muhammad, 2020. "Can Bitcoin hedge the risks of geopolitical events?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    17. Luther, William J. & Salter, Alexander W., 2017. "Bitcoin and the bailout," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 50-56.
    18. Christos Kollias & Stephanos Papadamou & Vangelis Arvanitis, 2013. "Symposium - Does Terrorism Affect the Stock-Bond Covariance? Evidence from European Countries," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 832-848, April.
    19. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "Bitcoin: competitor or complement to gold?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(1), pages 186-191.
    20. Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2016. "Does uncertainty move the gold price? New evidence from a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 74-80.
    21. Rodriguez, Juan Carlos, 2007. "Measuring financial contagion: A Copula approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 401-423, June.
    22. Osamah Al-Khazali & Elie Bouri & David Roubaud, 2018. "The impact of positive and negative macroeconomic news surprises: Gold versus Bitcoin," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 373-382.
    23. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Fabien Tripier, 2018. "Uncertainty and the macroeconomy: evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(10), pages 1093-1107, February.
    24. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "Safe havens in the face of Presidential election uncertainty: A comparison between Bitcoin, oil and precious metals," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(57), pages 6076-6088, December.
    25. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan, 2021. "Predicting Bitcoin returns: Comparing the roles of newspaper- and internet search-based measures of uncertainty," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    26. Al-Yahyaee, Khamis Hamed & Rehman, Mobeen Ur & Mensi, Walid & Al-Jarrah, Idries Mohammad Wanas, 2019. "Can uncertainty indices predict Bitcoin prices? A revisited analysis using partial and multivariate wavelet approaches," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 47-56.
    27. Drakos, Konstantinos, 2004. "Terrorism-induced structural shifts in financial risk: airline stocks in the aftermath of the September 11th terror attacks," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 435-446, June.
    28. Conlon, Thomas & McGee, Richard, 2020. "Safe haven or risky hazard? Bitcoin during the Covid-19 bear market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    29. Tavares, Jose, 2004. "The open society assesses its enemies: shocks, disasters and terrorist attacks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 1039-1070, July.
    30. Goodell, John W. & Goutte, Stephane, 2021. "Co-movement of COVID-19 and Bitcoin: Evidence from wavelet coherence analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    31. Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Kliber, Agata, 2021. "Is there one safe-haven for various turbulences? The evidence from gold, Bitcoin and Ether," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    32. Andrew J. Patton, 2006. "Modelling Asymmetric Exchange Rate Dependence," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(2), pages 527-556, May.
    33. Haddow, Abigail & Hare, Chris & Hooley, John & Shakir, Tamarah, 2013. "Macroeconomic uncertainty: what is it, how can we measure it and why does it matter?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 53(2), pages 100-109.
    34. Arin, K. Peren & Ciferri, Davide & Spagnolo, Nicola, 2008. "The price of terror: The effects of terrorism on stock market returns and volatility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 164-167, December.
    35. Conlon, Thomas & Corbet, Shaen & McGee, Richard J., 2020. "Are cryptocurrencies a safe haven for equity markets? An international perspective from the COVID-19 pandemic," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    36. Chesney, Marc & Reshetar, Ganna & Karaman, Mustafa, 2011. "The impact of terrorism on financial markets: An empirical study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 253-267, February.
    37. Goodell, John W. & Goutte, Stephane, 2021. "Diversifying equity with cryptocurrencies during COVID-19," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    38. Reboredo, Juan C., 2013. "Is gold a hedge or safe haven against oil price movements?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 130-137.
    39. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Hedging capabilities of bitcoin. Is it the virtual gold?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 139-144.
    40. Al Mamun, Md & Uddin, Gazi Salah & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2020. "Geopolitical risk, uncertainty and Bitcoin investment," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 540(C).
    41. Laura Alfaro & Anusha Chari & Andrew N. Greenland & Peter K. Schott, 2020. "Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time," NBER Working Papers 26950, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Long, Huaigang & Demir, Ender & Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Zaremba, Adam & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2022. "Is geopolitical risk priced in the cross-section of cryptocurrency returns?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    2. Cheng, Sheng & Zhang, Zongyou & Cao, Yan, 2022. "Can precious metals hedge geopolitical risk? Fresh sight using wavelet coherence analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bouoiyour, Jamal & Selmi, Refk & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Wohar, Mark E., 2019. "What are the categories of geopolitical risks that could drive oil prices higher? Acts or threats?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    2. Tachibana, Minoru, 2022. "Safe haven assets for international stock markets: A regime-switching factor copula approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Selmi, Refk & Mensi, Walid & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Bouoiyour, Jamal, 2018. "Is Bitcoin a hedge, a safe haven or a diversifier for oil price movements? A comparison with gold," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 787-801.
    4. Cui, Moyang & Wong, Wing-Keung & Wisetsri, Worakamol & Mabrouk, Fatma & Muda, Iskandar & Li, Zeyun & Hassan, Marria, 2023. "Do oil, gold and metallic price volatilities prove gold as a safe haven during COVID-19 pandemic? Novel evidence from COVID-19 data," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Gupta, Rangan & Majumdar, Anandamayee & Pierdzioch, Christian & Wohar, Mark E., 2017. "Do terror attacks predict gold returns? Evidence from a quantile-predictive-regression approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 276-284.
    6. Syuhada, Khreshna & Hakim, Arief & Suprijanto, Djoko & Muchtadi-Alamsyah, Intan & Arbi, Lukman, 2022. "Is Tether a safe haven of safe haven amid COVID-19? An assessment against Bitcoin and oil using improved measures of risk," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Gök, Remzi & Bouri, Elie & Gemici, Eray, 2022. "Can Twitter-based economic uncertainty predict safe-haven assets under all market conditions and investment horizons?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    8. Bampinas, Georgios & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2023. "How would the war and the pandemic affect the stock and cryptocurrency cross-market linkages?," MPRA Paper 117094, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kaczmarek, Tomasz & Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Grobelny, Przemysław & Perez, Katarzyna, 2022. "False Safe Haven Assets: Evidence From the Target Volatility Strategy Based on Recurrent Neural Network," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    10. Feng, Hao & Gao, Da & Duan, Kun & Urquhart, Andrew, 2023. "Does Bitcoin affect decomposed oil shocks differently? Evidence from a quantile-based framework," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Diniz-Maganini, Natalia & Diniz, Eduardo H. & Rasheed, Abdul A., 2021. "Bitcoin’s price efficiency and safe haven properties during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    12. Bouoiyour, Jamal & Selmi, Refk & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Measuring the response of gold prices to uncertainty: An analysis beyond the mean," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 105-116.
    13. Bonato, Matteo & Gupta, Rangan & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Wang, Shixuan, 2020. "Moments-based spillovers across gold and oil markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Ángeles Cebrián-Hernández & Enrique Jiménez-Rodríguez, 2021. "Modeling of the Bitcoin Volatility through Key Financial Environment Variables: An Application of Conditional Correlation MGARCH Models," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-16, January.
    15. Ren, Xiaohang & Wang, Rui & Duan, Kun & Chen, Jinyu, 2022. "Dynamics of the sheltering role of Bitcoin against crude oil market crash with varying severity of the COVID-19: A comparison with gold," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Disli, Mustafa & Nagayev, Ruslan & Salim, Kinan & Rizkiah, Siti K. & Aysan, Ahmet F., 2021. "In search of safe haven assets during COVID-19 pandemic: An empirical analysis of different investor types," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    17. Guo, Xiaochun & Lu, Fengbin & Wei, Yunjie, 2021. "Capture the contagion network of bitcoin – Evidence from pre and mid COVID-19," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Asai, Manabu & Gupta, Rangan & McAleer, Michael, 2020. "Forecasting volatility and co-volatility of crude oil and gold futures: Effects of leverage, jumps, spillovers, and geopolitical risks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 933-948.
    19. Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Hassan, M. Kabir & Rashid, Md. Mamunur & Alhenawi, Yasser, 2021. "Are safe haven assets really safe during the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    20. Tanin, Tauhidul Islam & Sarker, Ashutosh & Brooks, Robert & Do, Hung Xuan, 2022. "Does oil impact gold during COVID-19 and three other recent crises?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bitcoin; Gold; Geopolitical risks; Safe haven; Principal component analysis; Dependence switching copula model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:59:y:2022:i:c:s0275531921001331. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ribaf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.