Impact of Environmental Fluctuations on Stock Markets: Empirical Evidence from South Asia

The proportionate use of energy represents economic activity as well as environmental degradation. This study intends to examine the volatility spillover of environmental fluctuations (energy prices) to the stock markets of south Asian countries (i.e., Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan). In this regard, the data have been gathered from the Thomson Reuters DataStream from 2013 to 2021. This study has applied the Granger causality test and ARCH-GARCH (1, 1). It concludes that the bidirectional causality exists between the environmental prices (i.e., energy market) and Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India stock markets (BSE-100, DSE-30, and KSE-100, respectively). The empirical findings of this study show that there are volatility spillovers from the energy to the stock markets of Pakistan and India. On the other hand, no volatility spillover is observed from the energy to the stock market of Bangladesh. Moreover, the study implies that investors should invest in these stock markets to reduce the risk involved with diversification.