The dynamics of oil prices, COVID-19, and exchange rates in five emerging economies in the atypical first quarter of 2020

Abstract

The spread of the COVID-19 and the drop in oil prices caused financial turmoil during the first quarter of 2020. This paper aims to examine the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic, oil prices, and the exchange rates to the U. S. dollar during that period in five emerging economies: two oil-importers and three oil-exporters. The results of the autoregressive distributed lag analyses reveal a positive co-movement between the fatality rates and the exchange rates of three of those countries. The study also found a negative relationship between oil prices and the exchange rates of the five countries.

Keywords

• foreign exchange
• covid-19
• oil prices
• cointegration