Impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on single-person households in South Korea

Using nationally representative income and expenditure data from South Korea, we show that single-person households suffered a much greater decrease in household income and expenditure compared to multi-persons households during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Negative effects on income were largest for the single-person households in ages 50—64, mostly driven by decreases in earned income rather than business income. There was no corresponding decrease in consumption expenditures, however, other than on transportation expenditure for young men. Notably, there were significant decreases in non-consumption expenditures that are related to formal and informal consumption-smoothing mechanisms, such as spending on insurances, pensions, and household transfers. Our findings highlight the disproportionately negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the middle-aged single-person households. With reduced spending on consumption-smoothing mechanisms, this group is likely to be even more vulnerable to negative income shocks in the future.     

Economic and Distributional Impact of COVID-19: Evidence from Macro-Micro Modelling of the South African Economy

A computable general equilibrium model linked to a microsimulation model is applied to assess the potential short-term effects on the South African economy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With a particular focus on distributional outcomes, two simulations are run, a mild and a severe scenario. The findings show significant evidence of decline in economic growth and employment, with the decline harsher for the severe scenario. The microeconomic results show that the pandemic moves the income distribution curve such that more households fall under the poverty line while at the same time, inequality declines. The latter result is driven by the disproportionate decline in incomes of richer households while the poorest of the poor are cushioned by government social grants that are kept intact during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is still unfolding and its economic modelling as well as the data used to operationalise the model will need to be updated and improved upon as more information about the disease and the economy becomes available.     

COVID-19-associated income loss and job loss: Evidence from Indonesia

COVID-19 pandemic has substantially altered socioeconomic conditions around the world. While numerous existing studies analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among developed states, little is known about its effects on people’s lives and social discrepancies in emerging economies. To this end, we empirically analyze the 2020 Indonesian Labor Force Survey data, hypothesizing that COVID-19 has given idiosyncratic risks and impacts on people by gender, age, education, occupation and regions. We find that income loss and job loss are prominent among males, younger and less educated people as well as among self-employed and part-time non-agricultural workers. These tendencies are not pronounced for people enjoying high income and mobility, but tend to be evident for urban residents and those having dependents. Notably, self-employed people have the highest risk of losing income, while part-time urban workers face the highest probability of losing their jobs. The propensity score matching method also demonstrates that these losses are most evident for the regions susceptible to COVID-19. Overall, we suggest that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups require additional support to strengthen their resilience in the face of exogenous shocks, such as the one caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.     

Out of the shadows: Impact of SARS experience on Chinese netizens' willingness to donate for COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control

While charitable donations help to raise funds and contribute to pandemic prevention and control, there are many unanswered questions about how people make such donation decisions, especially in countries like China where charitable donations have played an increasing role in recent years. This study contributes to the literature by assessing the potential impacts of Chinese netizens' experience with the 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic on their willingness to donate for COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control. Specifically, this study applies a difference-in-differences (DID) model to a dataset collected from a nationwide survey to examine how individuals' exposure to the SARS epidemic affects their willingness to donate to alleviate the COVID-19 pandemic. The results suggest that individuals' SARS epidemic experiences in their early lives, especially during the “childhood-adolescence” period, had a lasting and far-reaching impact on their willingness to donate toward COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control. Also, the impacts were likely heterogeneous by such sociodemographic factors as educational background, health status, and income level. The empirical findings highlight the importance of considering early-life experiences in developing and implementing epidemic prevention and control policies. While the SARS experience likely affected Chinese netizens' willingness to donate toward COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, lessons learned from both the SARS epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic could be used to develop more effective public health education and prevention programs as well as to increase public donations for future pandemic prevention and control.     

COVID-19 and trade: Simulated asymmetric loss

This paper uses 2018 data as a benchmark to build a numerical 26-country global general equilibrium model with trade cost and an endogenous trade imbalance structure. We assume that COVID-19 will increase the trade cost between countries and decrease labor supply in production. We use China’s trade data from January to April in 2020 to calibrate the influence level parameters and then simulate the trade effects of COVID-19 in China, the EU, the US, and the world. Our simulation results find that all countries’ trade and exports will be significantly hurt by the pandemic. Due to the trade diversion effect and the price growth effect, some countries will see an increase in import trade. Comparatively, the pandemic has the most negative impact on global trade, followed by the EU, the US, and China. As the pandemic deepens, the negative impact on trade will increase. The worldwide pandemic has the most significant impact on US trade, with an effect about 1.5 times that of the average world effect.     

Disease,downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19

How might COVID-19 affect human capital and wellbeing in the long run? The COVID-19 pandemic has already imposed a heavy human cost—taken together, this public health crisis and its attendant economic downturn appear poised to dwarf the scope, scale, and disruptiveness of most modern pandemics. What evidence we do have about other modern pandemics is largely limited to short-run impacts. Consequently, recent experience can do little to help us anticipate and respond to COVID-19’s potential long-run impact on individuals over decades and even generations. History, however, offers a solution. Historical crises offer closer analogues to COVID-19 in each of its key dimensions—as a global pandemic, as a global recession—and offer the runway necessary to study the life-course and intergenerational outcomes. In this paper, we review the evidence on the long-run effects on health, labor, and human capital of both historical pandemics (with a focus on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic) and historical recessions (with a focus on the Great Depression). We conclude by discussing how past crises can inform our approach to COVID-19—helping tell us what to look for, what to prepare for, and what data we ought to collect now.     

Estimating a poverty line: An application to free basic municipal services in South Africa

One of the key interventions aimed at improving the welfare of South African households has been local government's provision of a package of free basic municipal services to poor households. It is, however, not completely clear how different municipalities identify households that are eligible for these services. Evidence suggests that many municipalities currently provide services to all households with a monthly income of less than R1500 a month. This ‘free basic services poverty line’ is, however, low in comparison with a number of unofficial poverty lines used by policymakers and researchers in South Africa. This paper considers the impact of increasing the value of the free basic services line, in terms of the additional share and number of households eligible for support and the additional financial cost. We find that urban municipalities would face the steepest increases in their free basic services budgets with any potential increase in the free basic services poverty line.     

Lights out? COVID-19 containment policies and economic activity

This paper estimates how strongly COVID-19 containment policies have impacted aggregate economic activity. We use a difference-in-differences methodology to estimate how containment zones of different severity across India impacted district-level nighttime light intensity, as well as household income and consumption. From May to July 2020, nighttime light intensity was 9.1 % lower in districts with the most severe restrictions compared with districts with the least severe restrictions, which could imply between 5.8 % and 6.6 % lower GDP. Nighttime light intensity was only 1.6 % lower in districts with intermediate restrictions. The differences were largest in May during the graded lockdown, and tapered in June and July. Lower house-hold income and consumption corresponding to zone-wise restrictions corroborate these results. Stricter containment measures had larger impacts in districts with greater population density, older residents, and more services employment. The large magnitudes of the findings suggest that governments should carefully consider the economic costs of country-wide pandemic containment policies while weighing the trade-offs against public health benefits. Keywords: Containment policies, COVID-19, Nighttime lights, India     

Changes in women’s empowerment in the household,women’s diet diversity,and their relationship against the background of COVID-19 in southern Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, associated public health measures, and people’s reactions were projected to have caused job losses among women, a decline in women’s empowerment and reduced women’s diet diversity. Using a November 2020 telephone survey to re-interview adult female respondents of a November 2019 in-person survey, contrary to expectations we find that more women found than lost jobs, and women’s diet diversity increased over the year partly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. We did not find evidence of a decline in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions, nor women’s autonomy over use of household income. The change in women’s outside employment is neither statistically related to changes in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions, changes women’s autonomy over use of household income, nor changes in women’s diet diversity. Change in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions is positively related with change in women’s diet diversity and change in women’s autonomy over income use is negatively related with change in women’s diet diversity.     

The poverty of solidarity: the size and structure of informal income smoothing among worker households in Helsinki, 1928

Abstract

Informal income smoothing by households before the post-Second World War expansion in public welfare has gained attention in the history of poverty and social insurance. Little direct empirical evidence has been available. Finnish household budgets from 1928 with intra-year panel data on informal transactions enable analysis of the use of savings, loans and informal assistance to counter income variation by worker families in Helsinki. Income shares of transfers were small compared with labour-based methods of supplementing the earnings of the surveyed male breadwinner families. Within the year, however, the combined use of assistance, credit, and savings accounts compensated on average 36% of income fluctuations, while means such as added workers or taking in lodgers appeared ineffective on the short run. Informal assistance mattered for the poorest households, but provided inferior coverage compared with that attained through credit and savings by more affluent workers. Income inequality was therefore replicated as risk-management inequality.     

Trade in reed-based craft products in rural villages in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

Selling traditional craft products made from fibrous plants is an important source of income for economically vulnerable rural women. In the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, Cyperus textilis and Juncus kraussii have been used for centuries to make products of functional and cultural importance, such as sleeping mats and baskets. In the former Transkei village clusters of Mpozolo and Ntubeni, female crafters harvest the raw material and make and sell the products in their communities and in nearby towns. Interviews with 40 of them revealed what the trade contributes to their livelihoods and what enhances or limits their success. The findings show that crafting contributes vital income to vulnerable households, on average 26 ± 4 per cent of annual household cash income, over 40 per cent for the poorest households and 5–15 per cent for wealthier households. Lack of access to non-traditional markets was identified as the main constraint on the trade.     

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global GDP growth

This paper describes one of the first attempts to gauge the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global trajectory of real GDP over the course of 2020 and 2021. It is also among the first efforts to distinguish between the role of domestic variables and global trade in transmitting the economic effects of COVID-19. We estimate panel data regressions of the quarterly growth in real GDP on pandemic variables for 90 countries over the period 2020 Q1 through 2021 Q4. We find that readings on the number of COVID-19 deaths had a very small effect in our aggregate sample. On the other hand, changes in the stringency of the lockdown measures taken by governments to restrict the spread of the virus were an important influence on GDP. The economic effects of the pandemic differed between rich and poor countries: COVID-19 deaths exerted a somewhat greater drag on GDP in advanced economies, although this difference was not statistically significant, whereas lockdown restrictions were more injurious to economic activity in emerging and developing economies. In addition to these domestic pandemic effects, global trade represented a significant channel through which the economic effects of the pandemic spilled across national borders. This finding underscores how globalization makes each country vulnerable not only to medical contagion from the COVID-19 pandemic, but to economic contagion as well.     

Poverty Effects of the Philippines’ Tariff Reduction Program: Insights from a Computable General Equilibrium Analysis*

A computable general equilibrium micro‐simulation model is used to assess the economic and poverty impacts of tariff reduction in the Philippines. Tariff reduction induces consumers to substitute cheaper imported agricultural products for domestic goods, thereby resulting in a contraction in agricultural output. In contrast, tariff reduction reduces the domestic cost of production, benefiting the outward‐oriented and import‐dependent industrial sector. The national poverty headcount decreases marginally as lower consumer prices outweigh the nominal income reduction experienced by the majority of households. However, both the poverty gap and severity of poverty worsens, implying that the poorest of the poor become even poorer.     

Promoting pro-poor growth through infrastructure investment: Evidence from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in China

This paper empirically estimates the effects of infrastructure investments on the level and distribution of impoverished households' income, utilizing the arguably exogenous investment shock from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in China. We focus on the agricultural income of poor rural households. We also examine whether these infrastructure investments increase or decrease income inequality within the impoverished group. We distinguish among different types of infrastructure investment, aiming to identify the investments effective in promoting growth in agricultural income, especially for the poorest. Based on a comprehensive household-level administrative dataset and econometric analysis, we find that electricity infrastructure significantly increases poor households' agricultural income and that the income benefit is equally distributed among the poor; agricultural irrigation infrastructure raises agricultural income significantly and delivers more benefit to the poorest households. An examination of the mechanism shows that both electricity and irrigation infrastructure increase the probability of participating in agricultural work and therefore increase agricultural income. These findings imply that, through increasing the utilization of agricultural land and the labor of impoverished households, electricity and irrigation infrastructure investments in rural impoverished areas are likely to lead to pro-poor and sustainable development.     

The distributional impacts of removing energy subsidies in China

The distributional impact on households is an important factor for the acceptance of energy subsidy reform. Based on energy consumption features of the Chinese households at different income levels, this paper adopts an input–output price model to analyze possible impacts of removing energy subsidies on income distribution under different scenarios. Results show that: (1) The distributional impacts of removing subsidies vary by fossil fuels. From the perspectives of combined effects, transport fuel subsidy removal and coal subsidy removal have the strongest and the weakest progressive effects respectively, while the removal of electricity subsidies has a regressive effect. Moreover, the removal of petroleum product subsidies has the greatest impact on households, followed by the removal of electricity and coal subsidies, respectively. (2) Indirect impacts of energy subsidy reform are greater than direct impacts on households. (3) Government price controls can reduce the negative impact of energy subsidy reform. Policy implications are thus summarized. Energy subsidy reform can start from the energy that has the strongest progressive effect and the minimum impact on households. The Chinese government can take certain compensatory measures to mitigate the impact of reform on poor households.     

The impact of COVID-19 on international trade: Evidence from the first shock

This study investigates how the effects of COVID-19 on international trade changed over time. To do that, we explore monthly data on worldwide trade from January to August in 2019 and 2020. Specifically, our study data include the exports of 34 countries to 173 countries. We estimated the gravity equation by employing various variables as a proxy for the COVID-19 damage. Our findings can be summarized as follows: First, regardless of our measures to quantify the COVID-19 pandemic, we found significantly negative effects of COVID-19 on the international trade of both exporting and importing countries. Second, those effects, especially the effects of COVID-19 in importing countries, tended to become insignificant since July 2020. This result implies that the harmful impacts of COVID-19 on international trade were accommodated after the first wave of the pandemic to some extent. Third, we found heterogeneous effects across industries. The negative effects on non-essential, durable products persist for a long time, whereas positive effects in industries providing medical products were observed.     

The impact of COVID-19 on employment and income of vocational graduates in China: Evidence from surveys in January and July 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic shocked the economy of China in early 2020. Strict lockdown measures were implemented nationwide to prevent the further spread of the virus. During the lockdown period, many economic activities were affected, which had repercussions for the nation's overall employment. Vocational graduates were among the most affected by the crisis. To estimate the causal effects of COVID-19 on the full-time employment of vocational high school graduates as well as their monthly income and hours worked by week, we exploit variations in the intensity of the pandemic in time and across space using survey data from vocational schools from six provinces in China. The results of the difference-in-differences (DID) estimates indicate that being located in counties with high pandemic intensity significantly reduced both the employment in full-time jobs of vocational graduates as well as their monthly income. Our study's analysis demonstrates that the effects of COVID-19 on the labor market can be attributed to the large-scale contraction of labor demand of the enterprises that were hiring vocational graduates. To cope with this situation, vocational graduates took various measures, including reducing consumption, drawing on their savings, searching for new jobs, taking on part-time jobs, borrowing money, and attending new training programs. In addition, the empirical analysis finds that there were heterogeneous effects with respect to gender, family social capital, the industry in which the vocational graduate was participating, and whether the individual was in a management position.     

Sleeplessness in COVID-19 pandemic: Lockdown and anxiety

This paper investigates the sleeplessness in Chinese cities during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We provide first evidence of a link from daily COVID-19 cases resulting in sleep loss in a panel of Chinese cities. We use Wuhan, which was the first city to be completely locked down, as basis to present the result that sleeplessness has become a considerably serious issue owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. In using the intervention policy of various cities as exogenous shocks, we find that lockdown policies significantly increase the sleeplessness level of Chinese cities. In addition, the severity of COVID-19 pandemic significantly exacerbates the negative effect of lockdown policies on sleep quality in the city. Overall, this study indicates that policy makers should pay more attention to public mental health when citizens recover from COIVD-19 by investigating the unintended consequences of COVID-19 on sleeplessness level of cities.     

Social assistance and dignity: South African women's experiences of the child support grant

Many women interact with the South African social security system in relation to the Child Support Grant (CSG), which is social assistance payable for children living with low-income caregivers. This paper explores women's accounts of how the CSG serves to protect and respect dignity, a foundational value in the South African Constitution. Drawing from focus groups and in-depth interviews with female CSG recipients of working age, it is argued that whilst the experience of using the CSG does protect dignity in certain important respects, other aspects including the application process, the small amount of the grant and negative discourses associated with the status of being a CSG recipient were experienced by many as erosive of dignity.     

The social scar of the pandemic: Impacts of COVID-19 exposure on interpersonal trust

This paper employs a difference-in-differences strategy to examine the causal effect of exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic on interpersonal trust amidst zero-COVID policies in China. Using a nationally representative panel survey, we find that COVID-19 exposure leads to a decrease in the levels of generalized trust. We also show that the change in interpersonal trust varies across domains. Specifically, COVID-19 exposure significantly decreases trust in parents, neighbors, and local government officials, but has small and insignificant effects on trust in doctors, strangers, and Americans. Empirical tests suggest that changes in income and physical health status are not likely to be potential channels. We provide some evidence for the mechanism of deteriorated mental health status and pessimistic expectations.