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COVID-19 and the financial and economic systems

When it comes to containing pandemics, particularly when a pandemic is as devastating as COVID-19, that bring the world to a standstill, there is no rule-book, there are no policy prescriptions, and there are no models (neither economic nor medical) that governments can draw upon. At these times, the rule for pandemic containment is self-taught, self-learnt, or learnt from the experience of other countries. Much of this learning takes place as the pandemic ages. This is precisely what the early experience of COVID-19 has taught us. So much is the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 that we are still learning. How will COVID-19 unfold and at which point its devastation will come to a halt are unpredictable. If the crisis has stressed governments and people alike globally, medical science finds itself in a space never before. Medically, COVID-19 is not all about developing a vaccine but also about understanding its origins, evolutions, mutations and, as a result, its life. Answers to these questions will take many months if not years. Global social and economic stability rests on the accuracy of answers to these questions.

It is within this spirit of learning not the medical side of COVID-19 but its economics, and not knowing what to expect in days and weeks to come let alone months, that this COVID-19 special issue (SI) of one of the leading Q1 SSCI journals, Financial Innovation, is devoted to.

The scope of this proposed SI is broad, covering innovation aspects of financial and economic systems in dealing with the repercussions of COVID-19. Two sub-themes are important. First, understanding how these systems are impacted—forecasting and predicting the effects of COVID-19 will be a key part of this story. Equally important will be understanding how COVID-19 has impacted trading outcomes including risk management and portfolio diversification. Second, proposals/models and/or new hypotheses that provide possible frameworks for policy makers to counter and mitigate the ramifications of COVID-19 are in demand. In this story, one core interest will be on understanding (a) the role of financial innovations and (b) configuring how technological innovations can complement financial innovations in providing a policy response to address financial and economic challenges faced by global economies.

The SI therefore invites papers that cover the above theme and sub-themes. Research ideas and/or proposals can be sent to the Guest Editor, Alfred Deakin Professor Paresh Narayan (by email: paresh.narayan2014@gmail.com)

All papers should be submitted to Financial Innovation at the following link https://www.editorialmanager.com/fini/default.aspx.  Authors need to choose the special issue submission option “COVID-19 & Innovation”. All submissions should be made by December 31, 2020. All submissions will follow the journal’s review process and we plan to publish the SI by June 30, 2021.

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  • 2022 Citation Impact
    8.4 - 2-year Impact Factor
    7.3 - 5-year Impact Factor
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