Abstract
Given the significant oil price changes during the past two decades, this paper examines the effect of oil price uncertainty on the sovereign credit risk of four Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia). By utilizing the nonparametric local linear dummy variable estimates (LLDVE), we unveil a significant effect of oil uncertainty on the credit risk mainly during the oil price crash of 2014–2015 and to a lesser extent during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic. This effect, however, is heterogeneous across the GCC countries. Unlike previous studies, our study controls for structural shifts, nonlinearities, and long-term trends in the relationship between oil price uncertainty and credit risk. Our findings hold important policy implications for policymakers and investors.
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Data availability
All data are obtained from the Thomson Reuters Datastream database. The models and data analysis are applied through computer software such as MATLAB and R. All data and codes will be available from the authors upon request upon request.
Notes
The GCC countries hold around 48% of the global oil reserves (Maghyereh and Abdoh 2022).
A sovereign CDS is a contract that protects against credit events leading to default, with premium payments increasing proportionally to the deterioration of the government’s creditworthiness. These contracts are highly liquid and standardized, efficiently reflecting government credit risk.
There is a growing number of studies investigating the determinants of sovereign credit risk (global/country factors) in developed countries (e.g., Longstaff et al. 2011; Pan and Singleton 2008; Dieckmann and Plank 2012; Heinz and Sun 2014; Augustin et al. 2022; Agiakloglou et al. 2021; Andrieș et al. 2021; among many others) and emerging countries (e.g., Kocsis and Monostori 2016; Ho 2016; Daehler et al. 2020; Daehler et al. 2021; among many others).
A well-known advantage of using a nonparametric framework on panel data is that the method increases the degrees of freedom and sample variability, reflecting positively on our estimates’ efficiency.
Flamos et al. (2013) argue that the economic diversification in GCC is weak when compared to other economies such as Germany, France, and Norway.
Goetzmann et al. (2005) and Longstaff et al. (2011) documented that US financial markets have strong economic fundamentals, which are relevant for most countries globally. Furthermore, the US is the largest trading and investment partner for many countries worldwide, thus exerting direct effects on global economies and financial markets (Maghyereh et al. 2022). González-Rozada and Levy Yeyati (2008) found that movements in US Treasuries explain approximately half of the long-run volatility in interest rates for emerging economies.
We have also considered several other variables (i.e., public debt, exchange rate, and US corporate credit spread). However, they were not included in the final model because our estimates were not statistically significant.
Farrar and Glauber (1967) noted that the multicollinearity may lead to less reliable estimates if the correlation coefficient is higher than 0.8.
The AMG combines the advantages of pooled mean group (PMG) estimation and mean group (MG) estimation. It allows for heterogeneity in short-run coefficients across cross-sectional units while assuming a common long-run relationship.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia issued $26 billion of domestic debt and spent $100 billion of its $723 billion reserves.
The aggregate bond and sukuk market have doubled from $86 billion in 2014 to around $190 billion in 2019. Moreover, JP Morgan included the GCC sovereign and quasi-sovereign bonds in the EMBI index last year.
This point has been brought to our attention by one of the referees.
We estimated the model using data from January 2011 to May 2020, corresponding to the OPU index’s availability. The authors thank Bao H. Nguyen for generously providing the necessary data for this analysis. Access to the data is available with permission at https://sites.google.com/site/nguyenhoaibao/datasets/oil-market-uncertainty?authuser=0.
The impulse response analysis utilizing LP, which includes p lags to account for serial correlation, is roughly comparable to the results obtained from a VAR(p) model (Li et al. 2022).
We thank one of the anonymous referees for drawing our attention to this point.
For more detailed information regarding LP IRF techniques, refer to Jordà (2005) and Ahmed and Cassou (2016).
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Acknowledgements
The authors extend their sincere appreciation to the anonymous referee who diligently reviewed an earlier version of the paper, offering valuable comments and suggestions that significantly contributed to its enhancement. Furthermore, the authors would like to convey their gratitude to Editor for the effective communication throughout the submission process. Finally, the first author acknowledges the financial support by College of Business and Economics at United Arab Emirates University under Grant No. CARP-Spring 2022.
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This work was supported by the United Arab Emirates University [College Annual Research Program (CARP)-Spring 2022].
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Aktham Maghyereh: Initiated the subject, contributed to the methodologies, collected data, analyzed the data in MATLAP and R and interpretation and discussion of results. Hussein Abdoh: Review of literature, interpretation, and discussion of results, and wrote the first manuscript. The authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Maghyereh, A., Abdoh, H. Oil price uncertainly and sovereign credit risk in GCC countries: fresh evidence. Int Econ Econ Policy 21, 457–482 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10368-024-00607-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10368-024-00607-x