Past Experiences,Personality Traits,and Risk Aversion: Evidence from Individual Risk Attitudes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Individuals’ risk attitudes play an important role in economic decision making and policy evaluation, particularly in the midst of unprecedented uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We adopt a multiple-price-list elicitation method with real money incentives to measure precisely individuals’ risk attitudes at different stake levels and the extent to which they are affected by personal and social shocks following the COVID-19 outbreak in China. We find that subjects who had previously experienced negative personal shocks are more risk-averse at medium and large stakes but more risk loving at very small stakes. For our sample, COVID-19 has no significant impact on risk attitudes, as it is more likely to be regarded as a social shock. The result indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on individual risk attitudes is not as influential as expected, unless the individual’s personal life is affected directly.     

COVID-19 and gender disparities: Labour market outcomes

The study explores the effect of COVID-19 on labour market outcomes for women in the major urban areas in Canada. Using data from the Labour Force Statistics, we find the pandemic has had a disproportionately negative impact on the employment and income of women, worsening gender inequalities. Sectors more likely to employ women faced immense negative pressures, leading to dismal employment numbers. The effects of continued lockdowns and future potential inflation suggest that gender wage disparity continues to increase, worsening the economic health of women and making them even more vulnerable to future event risks.     

Impact of government policy responses of COVID-19 pandemic on stock market liquidity for Australian companies

This study investigates the impact of government policy responses of COVID-19 pandemic on stock market liquidity for listed Australian companies and for 11 different industries separately. A quantitative deductive approach is used for a sample of 1,452 companies with a total of 292,164 firm-day observations over a period from January 25, 2020 to December 31, 2020 during the outbreak of COVID-19. Univariate and multivariate (two-way cluster-robust panel regression) analysis were conducted. Data were collected from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, Worldmeter, Refinitiv Workspace and Datastream. Our findings indicate that the influences of the six out of seven stringency policy responses reduced Australian equity market liquidity. However, public information campaigns enhanced market liquidity and hence trading activity. Among the 11 industries, our analysis shows that the non-pharmaceutical interventions by the Australian government have significant and positive effects on four industries: Consumer non-cyclicals, healthcare, financial and technology. However, the worse effects were depicted in the industrial (transportation) and energy industries. This study is important for investors, policymakers and regulators to understand the diverse effects of government policy responses of COVID-19 on stock market liquidity to enhance financial stability. Moreover, understanding this effect is particularly important to decision-makers such as portfolio and fund managers to manage their portfolios and trading activities during extreme turbulence times, such as COVID-19. Unlike previous studies that focus on country analysis, this study examines on firm basis the impact of government interventions on stock market liquidity in a well developed Australian stock market.     

Quantitative Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock to Household Consumption in China

We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic shock on household consumption in China. Using household survey data, we find that the proportion of liquidity-constrained households increases quickly, but the constraint levels vary across distinct groups. We build a heterogeneous agent life cycle incomplete market model to analyze the long-run and short-run effects of the pandemic shock. The quantitative results reveal a slow recovery of consumption due to three reasons: hiking unemployment rate, declining labor productivity, and worsening income stability. The hiking unemployment rate plays the key role in households’ consumption reduction since it simultaneously leads to a negative income effect and upsurging precautionary saving motives. Our paper highlights the importance of maintaining a stable labor market for faster recovery.     

Sectoral Employment Dynamics in Australia and the COVID-19 Pandemic

We develop a multivariate time series model of employment in 19 sectors for Australia. We use this model to determine the long-run effect of a 1% increase in economic activity in any chosen sector on aggregate employment. Our findings point to manufacturing and construction sectors as those that generate the largest positive spillovers for the aggregate economy. Moreover, we provide an interactive web-based app that produces our model's forecasts based on any user-specified scenario. As the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic evolve, the sectoral employment multipliers together with these interactive tools will provide useful information for policymakers.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of labor market interventions on reducing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper evaluates whether different labor market policy interventions taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have been effective in reducing its adverse impacts. We construct a database covering 165 countries and 39 labor market interventions grouped into four pillars: stimulating the economy and jobs (pillar 1); supporting enterprises, employment, and incomes (pillar 2); protecting workers (pillar 3); and social dialogue (pillar 4). The results revealed that measures taken under pillars 1, 2, and 3 have reduced the impacts of the pandemic on economic growth; measures under pillar 4 were significantly associated with reducing its impacts on employment and those under pillar 2 with reducing its impacts on working hours.     

COVID-19 and Long-Term Economic Growth

This article investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the long-term economic growth of South Africa. We embed an epidemiological model in a modified Solow–Swan model and explore various channels such as morbidity, mortality, unemployment, loss of school days and capital accumulation. We demonstrate that COVID-19 will lower the average annual growth rate of GDP per capita of South Africa by 0.07 percentage points in the next four decades, a 25 per cent decline relative to the no-COVID benchmark. We show that human capital losses due to school closures account for more than half of the economic slowdown.     

COVID-19 fatalities and internal conflict: Does government economic support matter?

This study examines the association between COVID-19 mortality rates and internal conflict and investigates the possible moderating role of government economic support during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Our main hypothesis suggests that countries with lower levels of government economic support are more likely to experience a positive correlation between higher COVID-19 mortality rates and the emergence of internal conflict. Using cross-country data from over 100 countries and controlling for various factors that may influence internal conflict, our analysis provides some support for this hypothesis. The results suggest a possible moderating role for government economic support, with the evidence indicating a weakening or elimination of the association between COVID-19 mortality rates and internal conflict when government economic support is adequate. However, the moderating effect of government economic support is not always significant, and caution is needed when interpreting the results. Our analysis also highlights the potential risks associated with low levels of government economic support during the pandemic. Specifically, we find that in countries where the government's macro-financial package in response to the pandemic is less than approximately 25% of GDP, there is a possible risk of growth in civil disorder resulting from increased COVID-19 deaths per million.     

The sooner,the better: The economic impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper estimates the economic impact of the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented by countries in Europe and Central Asia during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis relies on daily electricity consumption, nitrogen dioxide emission and mobility records to trace the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic and calibrate these measures to estimate the magnitude of the economic impact. To address the potential endogeneity in the introduction of NPIs, we instrument their stringency by the extent of a country's social ties to China. The results suggest that the NPIs led to a decline of about 10% in economic activity across the region. On average, countries that implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions in the early stages of the pandemic appear to have better short-term economic outcomes and lower cumulative mortality, compared with countries that imposed non-pharmaceutical interventions during the later stages of the pandemic. Moreover, there is evidence that COVID-19 mortality at the peak of the local outbreak has been lower in countries that acted earlier. In this sense, the results suggest that the sooner non-pharmaceutical interventions are implemented, the better are the economic and health outcomes.     

Impact of infectious disease pandemics on individual lifetime consumption: An endogenous time preference approach

This paper considers the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on long-term individual lifetime consumption profiles. The framework for the analysis is a model that extends Strulik (2021) to include the government sector, where time preference is determined by individual health damage (deficit) distinct from normal aging. Thus, the health damage caused by COVID-19 changes the rate of time preference and consequently affects the Euler equation for consumption. Our theoretical contribution is the consistent incorporation of public health investment into the existing model to understand the effect of government measures against a pandemic. Numerical analysis based on this model is used to estimate changes in health status over time, trends in the rate of time preference, and individual lifetime consumption profiles, taking into account differences in age at the time of the pandemic and the nature of the government responses. Because the long-term negative economic impact would be enormous, we should avoid advocating for “living with COVID-19” without due consideration. The reopening of the economy must be accompanied by a commitment to the containment and elimination of infections with future novel coronaviruses.     

The Economic Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia: A Closer Look at Gender Gaps in Employment,Earnings and Education

Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, this article considers the longer-lasting economic impacts on the Australian workforce through a gender lens. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics data, it analyses changes in employment, earnings and educational participation relative to the pre-pandemic trends that were predicted to have otherwise occurred. Despite women's employment moving back towards pre-pandemic levels more rapidly than men's, the pandemic also saw a widening of the gender gap in earnings and a larger fall in women's educational participation. This paper highlights the need for ongoing monitoring of labour market indicators through a gender lens to inform more responsive policy design.     

China’s Exports during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused various economic contraction in most countries, including all of China’s major trading partners. Using a difference-in-differences model, this study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China’s monthly exports from January 2019 to May 2020. We find strong and robust evidence that China’s exports to countries at high risk from the pandemic experienced a larger decline than exports to low-risk countries after the onset of the pandemic, with the prices of exports increasing significantly. Furthermore, the results of a triple differences model show heterogeneous effects across different industries and goods. Chinese industries located upstream in the global value chain are more vulnerable than those located downstream. Industries with high labor and contract intensity (proxies for processing trade) experienced greater declines than other industries. Exports of goods with high import elasticity of substitution experienced higher prices and moderate volume losses due to the pandemic.     

Food consumption changes during 2020 lockdown in Italy

The lockdown imposed to limit the diffusion of COVID-19 in Italy affected the economic situation negatively. The income of many households decreased, and people were forced to stay home. Both these factors influenced food consumption: on the one hand less income means less money for purchases, on the other, the negative psychological impact of lesser income and the pandemic shifted the consumption towards alcohol and tobacco. Using survey data, this paper shows how the negative economic shock due to lockdown, together with the restrictions imposed by it, affected the consumption of food items in a region of Norther Italy.     

The impact of COVID-19 on seasoned equity offering: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic on the association between Chinese firms' SEO announcements and market reaction afterwards. Our findings indicate that market investors would respond more negatively to the SEO announcements and undergo more SEO underpricing for firms from regions significantly affected by the pandemic than those from the less-affected regions. Furthermore, higher CSR scores and more involvements in accounting conservatism could mitigate these effects. The main mechanism of the moderating effect from CSR performance and accounting conservatism is that CSR investment and accounting conservatism could lessen information asymmetry between the SEO announced firms and outside investors. Finally, we document that the main motivation of SEO issuance during the pandemic is market timing.     

Estimating the link between trade uncertainty,pandemic uncertainty and food price stability in Togo: New evidence for an asymmetric analysis

Globally, the outbreak of COVID-19 and the associated containment measures adopted by governments are causing disruptions that sow uncertainty in several sectors of the economy. In this study, we explore the asymmetric impact of pandemic uncertainty and global trade policy on food prices in Togo. The study uses a nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag (NARDL) framework and causality tests for the period 2000 M1–2021 M5. The results show that the different types of uncertainty affect food price stability in the short and long run, but the shock is more pronounced in the case of pandemic uncertainty, as they are sudden and disrupt food price stability. The main findings remain significant when we use various alternative methods and estimation techniques. However, our results suggest that the Togolese food market is facing pandemic uncertainty and trade policy, which should lead policymakers and stakeholders to take corrective measures to control losses.     

The great Canadian recovery: The impact of COVID-19 on Canada's labour market

The Canadian labour market experienced a period of unprecedented turmoil following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze the main changes using standard labour force statistics and new data on job postings. Envisaging a phase of temporary severing of employment relationships followed by a phase of more standard labour market search and matching, we use stock and flow data to understand key developments. We find dramatic changes in employment, unemployment and labour market attachment in the first few months of the pandemic and a broad though gradual recovery through to the end of 2021.     

Loss-of-learning and the post-Covid recovery in low-income countries

We analyze the medium-term macroeconomic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lock-down measures on low-income countries. We focus on the impact of the degradation of health and human capital caused by the pandemic and its aftermath, exploring the trade-offs between rebuilding human capital and the recovery of livelihoods and macroeconomic sustainability. A dynamic general equilibrium model is calibrated to reflect the structural characteristics of vulnerable low-income countries and to replicate key dimensions of the Covid-19 shock. We show that absent significant and sustained external financing, the persistence of loss-of-learning effects on labor productivity is likely to make the post-Covid recovery more attenuated and more expensive than many contemporary analysis suggests.     

Risky behaviour and non-vaccination

Widespread vaccination acceptance is of critical import to society dealing with the continuing aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The risky behaviours that predict whether individuals vaccinate for seasonal influenza can help policymakers fashion plans to improve vaccination rates and more reliably establish herd immunity. To this end, Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) data were employed to determine how an individual’s choice to engage in various risky behaviours relates with the likelihood that the same individual gets the seasonal influenza vaccine. Controls were included for demographic, geographic, and health insurance factors. In addition to controlling for these factors, regressions were further stratified based upon gender, the presence of children in the home, and age. I found that excess sun exposure, poor oral hygiene, smoking, and unhealthy diet choices correlated with reduced vaccination probability—both over the subsequent year and for that individual’s lifetime. These results have important implications for properly targeting individuals for widespread vaccinations.

     

What Implications Does COVID-19 Have on Sustainable Economic Development in the Medium and Long Terms?

Given the enormous impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on China’s economy, helping companies to revitalize post-pandemic economic activities promptly is a priority for the whole society. This necessitates the smooth circulation of production-factors among different economic entities, departments, and regions. The pandemic’s huge impact on the economy is evident in the severely hampered flow of these factors, including labor, materials, and capital. Therefore, using data and digital technology, combined with a contact-free allocation of labor, capital, and materials, to accelerate the flow of production-factors is critical to the post-pandemic economy’s restoration. Such a policy can not only provide a short-term stimulus but also a momentum for China’s mid- and long-term sustainable economic development.