Oil shocks and stock market volatility of the BRICS : a GARCH-MIDAS approach

Abstract

In this study, we employ the GARCH–MIDAS (Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity variant of Mixed Data Sampling) model to investigate the response of stock market volatility of the BRICS group of countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) to oil shocks. We utilise the recent datasets of Baumeister & Hamilton (2019), where oil shocks are decomposed into four variants: oil supply shocks, economic activity shocks, oil consumption shocks, and oil inventory shocks. We further decompose each of these shocks into positive and negative shocks, and our findings show heterogeneous response of stock market volatility of the BRICS countries to the alternative oil shocks, including positive and negative shocks. The differing responses across the BRICS countries could be attributed to differences in the economic size, oil production, and consumption profile of the countries, market share distribution across firms, and financial system and regulation efficiency.