Title: An ARDL approach: case study of COVID-19 death and insurance stock returns

Authors: Himani Gupta; Shalini Singh; Renu Bala; Bhavna Sharma

Addresses: Department of Management, Jagannath International Management School, OCF, Pocket 9, Sector B, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, 110070, India ' School of Commerce, Finance and Accountancy, Christ (Deemed to be University), Delhi-NCR, Mariam Nagar, Meerut Road, Delhi NCR, Ghaziabad – 201003, India ' Mukhtiar Singh Memorial Degree College, Behbalpur, Haryana 125050, India ' School of Commerce, Finance and Accountancy, Christ (Deemed to be University), Delhi-NCR, Mariam Nagar, Meerut Road, Delhi NCR, Ghaziabad – 201003, India

Abstract: The movement of investment vehicles helps investors communicate as a stock market shield via a diverse portfolio. The COVID-19 outbreak had impacted the India along with other countries across the globe. The disease's progression and economic impact are highly uncertain. The current study is a novel effort to untangle the dynamic relationship between COVID-19 death and returns of NSE-listed life insurance stocks. We look at COVID-19 death data as well as returns from SBI Life, HDFC Life, and ICICI PRU from April 2020 to July 2021, when pandemic was the leading cause of death. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model technique, we discover that COVID-19 death has no dynamic relationship with the returns of selected life insurance stocks. In conclusion, our findings will provide stockholders, investment advisors, and policy experts with significant foresight into guaranteeing returns on life insurance stocks free from uncertain calamities such as COVID-19.

Keywords: insurance; economic development; financial markets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2025.148781

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2025 Vol.41 No.2, pp.156 - 177

Received: 25 Dec 2022
Accepted: 09 Mar 2023
Published online: 24 Sep 2025 *

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