Working papers

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting global markets through unprecedented circumstances. Fears surrounding such a novel virus have led to dramatic market turbulence and massive falls in stock prices. In this paper, we explore the impact of COVID-19, in a comprehensive sample of 45 emerging countries. We track the performance of each of their markets during the outbreak, using  major stock indices and we compute the volatility using a GARCH (1,1) model. Moreover, we report conventional and Islamic bond issuances and assess investors’ perceptions towards credit risk by examining the premiums on sovereign credit default swaps. We then compare the results to the period of the global financial crisis. We find that, indeed, COVID-19 has struck the emerging countries harshly, driving sharp declines in stock market indices, causing an escalation in volatility levels, and widening the premiums on sovereign credit default swaps. However, such upheavals have  not yet reached the levels of the global financial crisis.  Finally, we examine the reactions of the IMF,  local governments and central banks in response to the crisis.

The objective of this working paper is to study the institutional arrangements that Morocco has enjoyed. This is based on subtle political balances that everyone, from the top to the bottom of the social hierarchy—from the king at the top to the electors at the base—is trying to preserve. Such stability is also founded on judicial norms mixing specific practices with a monarchy that is hundreds of years’ old and foreign influences emanating from countries throughout the Mediterranean, every time this was felt necessary. Far from seeking a paradox at all costs, it is perhaps the ancient character itself of the Sherifian kingdom and the strong traditions it is founded upon, that have made it easier to abandon a number of elements that do not seem adapted to modern times. It is only within the framework of a pact between the monarch, the whole of the political class, and the entire nation that this policy of reform can be shown to have achieved complete success.