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Purpose: This study examined interrelationships among insomnia, stress, anxiety, and metabolic risk factors. Methods: A total of 124 college students were included in the analysis (age = 21 ± 1 years). Insomnia, stress of life events, and anxiety were assessed using self-reported questionnaires. Fasting blood samples were assayed for glucose, insulin, total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-cholesterol), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol). Results: Insomnia was positively associated with stress of life events (β = 0.28, p <.001) and anxiety (β = 0.46, p <.001). Insomnia was related to elevated fasting insulin (β = 0.12, p =.04) and triglyceride level (β = 1.85, p <.001). An inverse association was found between insomnia and HDL-cholesterol (β = −0.45, p =.03). Sobel's test for mediation showed that stress of life events (p =.020) and anxiety (p =.013) mediated the relationship between insomnia and hypertriglyceridemia. Conclusions: Reducing stress and anxiety among college students with insomnia may influence subsequent cardiovascular health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing with the enormous economic loss resulting from the unexpected outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks around the world began to show a great activeness and implement numerous monetary policies to help mitigate the negative shocks and recover the economy. This paper aims at investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the macroeconomy and whether central bank activeness have helped mitigate the negative shock of the COVID-19. Using the panel fixed effects model and monthly data of 38 countries from January 2020 to June 2021, this paper finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased inflation and unemployment apparently. More importantly, central bank activeness has a positive effect on reducing the growing pressure from the COVID-19 on inflation, while it cannot mitigate the shock of the COVID-19 on unemployment rate. Specially, government others measure, including containment and health, and stringency policies, have little effect in mitigating the negative impact of the pandemic on inflation and unemployment. Our findings suggest that the central bank activeness have heterogeneous effects on different macroeconomic indicators, and cannot mitigate the hurts of the COVID-19 pandemic for all macro indicators during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research empirically analyzes the impact of foreign exchange futures volatility on macroeconomic variables by using data of ten trading markets from 2011 to 2020.1 Our findings illustrate that the volatility of foreign exchange futures significantly affects various macroeconomic indicators. In particular, as the volatility of foreign exchange futures increases, it reduces government budget revenue, increases the inflation rate, and has a positive impact on net exports and total reserves. Moreover, this research conducted robustness tests by replacing independent variables and conducting a sub-sample regression to ensure the reliability of the regression results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8586.2008.00287.x Byline: Jun-De Lee (*), Chien-Chiang Lee (*), Chun-Ping Chang ([dagger]) Keywords: hysteresis; OECD; panel LM unit root test; unemployment Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper applies the panel LM unit root tests with heterogeneous structural breaks in level by Im et al. (Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 67 (2005), pp. 393-419) to re-examine the validity of hysteresis in the unemployment rates of 19 OECD countries. Our empirical findings are favourable to the stationarity of the unemployment rates, i.e., the unemployment hysteresis hypothesis is strongly rejected. Our results suggest that shocks to unemployment rates are temporary and soon converge when we control for breaks. A major policy implication of the study is that a fiscal or monetary stabilization policy would not have permanent effects on the unemployment rates of the 19 OECD countries. Author Affiliation: (*)National Sun Yat-Sen, Taiwan ([dagger])Shih Chien University Kaohsiung Campus, Taiwan Article note: Correspondence: Chien-Chiang Lee, Department of Finance, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Tel: +886 7 5252000x4825 Fax: +886 7 5254899. Email: cclee@cm.nsysu.edu.tw. We would like to thank two anonymous referees and an editor for helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper. We would also like to thank Professor Junsoo Lee for making available his GAUSS codes to generate the results reported in this paper.

This research examines the effects of executive political connections on corporate performance by comparing firms with mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and firms without M&A activities in the energy sector using China Securities Regulatory Commission industry data from 2008 to 2018. We integrate two theoretical approaches, resource dependence and the agency view into one framework, and find that executives' political connections have a positive effect on corporate performance when there are no M&A activities, which is consistent with the resource dependence theory; however, well-connected executives harm firm performance through M&A activities. Our main results still hold after considering endogeneity issues, substituting relevant variables, comparing the effect of the global financial crisis, and controlling for market structure. Our study provides significant insight into the energy sector, which can help practitioners and policymakers who want to make advancements in firms' competitiveness through better implementation of policies related to M&A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on panel data of 31 provincial capital cities in the country from January 21 to November 20, 2020, this research empirically analyzes the impacts of daily newly confirmed cases and daily new deaths from COVID-19 on PM10, PM2.5, SO2, CO, and NO2 emissions form green energy consumption by using the method of System Generalized Moments (SYS-GMM). We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has an inhibitory effect on all types of emissions, in that a greater number of confirmed cases and deaths brings about more stringent anti-epidemic policies, fewer emissions, and better air quality in China. Moreover, we use the methods of sample segmentation, cross-sectional regression, and pollutant emissions of the top three cities in terms of GDP to test their robustness. Overall, our evidence advances the debate over air quality after COVID-19, and that evidence from China provides beneficial experiences that correlate to its provincial data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the relationships between stock prices of solar enterprises and the COVID-19 pandemic for 18 enterprises from OECD countries and 3 enterprises from non-OECD countries from January 2, 2020 to March 8, 2021. The empirical results show that there exists a cointegration relationship between the pandemic and solar stock prices. Moreover, the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on solar stock prices exhibit heterogeneity, as the COVID-19 pandemic affects solar stock prices negatively in the full sample and OECD countries, whereas the pandemic negatively affects solar stock prices in both the short run and long run, but the effects are not significant in non-OECD countries. We conduct a series of robustness tests, including changing variables and employing the Markov switching regression for time-series analysis, and the results support our main findings. According to the empirical results, investors should be prudent about investing in solar enterprises, while policymakers should balance pandemic control and maintain economic performance when implementing prevention policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]