Spillovers of stock markets among the BRICS: New evidence in time and frequency domains before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic

We attempted to comprehensively decode the connectedness among the abbreviation of five emerging market countries (BRICS) stock markets between 1 August 2002 and 31 December 2019 not only in time domain but also in frequency domain. A continuously varying spillover index based on forecasting error variance decomposition within a generalized abbreviation of vector-autoregression (VAR) framework was computed. With the help of spectral representation, heterogeneous frequency responses to shocks were separated into frequency-specific spillovers in five different frequency bands to reveal differentiated linkages among BRICS markets. Rolling sample analyses were introduced to allow for multiple changes during the sample period. It is found that return spillovers dominated by the high frequency band (within 1 week) part declined with the drop of frequencies, while volatility spillovers dominated by the low frequency band (above 1 quarter) part grew with the decline in frequencies; the dynamics of spillovers were influenced by crucial systematic risk events, and some similarities implied in the spillover dynamics in different frequency bands were found. From the perspective of identifying systematic risk sources, China's stock market and Russia's stock market, respectively, played an influential role for return spillover and volatility spillover across BRICS markets.