Using annual data spanning the period of 1258-2018, we test the safe haven characteristic of gold in the wake of global crises. We find that, when we allow for regime-switching to capture nonlinearity and structural breaks, gold serves as a strong hedge against crises, especially during the bullish regime of the market, and in particular from the post-World War I period, as suggested by a time-varying model. In comparison, silver, however, does not seem to possess the safe haven property over the historical period of 1688-2018. Finally, we also find that global crises can accurately predict real gold returns over a long-span (1302-2018) out-of-sample period.
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