No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

We study the trends and fluctuations in greenfield foreign direct investment (GFDI) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on a global scale. We analyse the data of a data set of GFDI provided by fDi Markets ( Financial Times) to understand the contraction of GFDI during the first three quarters of the year 2020, taking into account the sector of the investment and the host and home country. We analyse both the long-run trends and the quarter-over-quarter changes in GFDI to capture its fluctuations before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis. Our findings cast light on which countries’ and industries’ GFDIs were most affected by the pandemic crisis and draw a comparison to the global financial crisis. To our surprise, many services industries have shown unexpected resilience of GFDI due to the flexibility for remote work. On the contrary, GFDI in the manufacturing industries, as well as the extractives and the utility industries, has shown a dramatic decline during the pandemic. These contractions raise questions of stability and resilience of the global supply chains these industries are a part of. JEL Codes: F21

Lockdown efforts introduced as response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted various facets of life including the educational sector. This study focuses on teachers’ mental health during this period. Research indicates positive mental health offsets negative impact of stress. The relationship of mental health assets such as psychological well-being, and mindfulness to COVID-19 event related stress is examined in this study. Teachers in India were approached through social media using snowball sampling to complete a survey. The survey consisted of the short version of Scales of Psychological Well-being (SPWB; Ryff, 1989), Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale – Revised (CAMS-R; Feldman et al., 2007), and Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R; Creamer, Bell, & Failla, 2003). Results indicate that there is moderate negative correlation between psychological well-being and impact of event, and between mindfulness and impact of event. Psychological well-being and mindfulness and positively correlated. This indicates that presence of positive mental health components can imply lower stress response during the pandemic. Further study will help identify causal direction among the variables, which can inform mental health programs.