Understanding Coronanomics: The economic implications of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

Understanding Coronanomics: The economic implications of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

Suborna Barua

Release date: 1 April 2020

The corresponding full paper by Suborna Barua is available as a working paper.

Abstract

The globalization of COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts is set to run havoc across all economies in the world, throwing many into recession and possibly economic depression. As the numbers of infected and death cases rise sharply and recovery from the pandemic remains uncertain even in developed countries, evidence of shocks across economies including China, the Europe, and the US are already emerging. The aim of this paper is to provide an overall understanding of the likely macroeconomic shocks of the pandemic, covering economic activities or areas including demand, supply, supply chain, trade, investment, price level, exchange rates, and financial stability and risk, economic growth, and international cooperation. The paper first presents a general and theoretical mapping of the likely macroeconomic impacts of the pandemic on an affected economy and then reviews the emerging evidence in relation to the impact mapping to understand the nature of the impacts. The paper then illustrates the likely impacts using a standard macroeconomic AD-AS model and outlines some necessary features that needs to be considered while designing policy responses by governments and international institutions in mitigating the economic shocks. Assessments of this paper are broadly in line with the limited studies available on the economics of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19, coronavirus, coronanomics, pandemic, economic impacts

JEL codes: F40, I15, E1, E6

The full working paper is available at: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3566477

[1] Suborna Barua, PhD is Assistant Professor at the Department of International Business, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the Coordinator of OBOR Research Group - an Australia-based research group; the author is thankful to Al Amni Sabbir and Farjana Nasrin for their tireless assistance in this work.

[2] The manuscript is under development and the current version is the first draft. All errors and omissions belong to the author and will be corrected in the next version of the manuscript. The author will be very happy to receive comments, suggestions, or observations on this draft at sbarua.du@gmail.com.

Copyright(c): Suborna Barua