IMF Working Papers

Initial Output Losses from the Covid-19 Pandemic: Robust Determinants

By Davide Furceri, Michael Ganslmeier, Jonathan David Ostry, Naihan Yang

January 29, 2021

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Davide Furceri, Michael Ganslmeier, Jonathan David Ostry, and Naihan Yang. Initial Output Losses from the Covid-19 Pandemic: Robust Determinants, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2021) accessed September 19, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

While the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all countries, output losses vary considerably across countries. We provide a first analysis of robust determinants of observed initial output losses using model-averaging techniques—Weighted Average Least Squares and Bayesian Model Averaging. The results suggest that countries that experienced larger output losses are those with lower GDP per capita, more stringent containment measures, higher deaths per capita, higher tourism dependence, more liberalized financial markets, higher pre-crisis growth, lower fiscal stimulus, higher ethnic and religious fractionalization and more democratic regimes. With respect to the first factor, lower resilience of poorer countries reflects the higher economic costs of containment measures and deaths in such countries and less effective fiscal and monetary policy stimulus.

Subject: COVID-19, Fiscal stimulus, Health, Labor market regulations, Population and demographics

Keywords: BMA, Containment measure, Credit market regulation, Model-Averaging., Output loss, Output performance, Product market regulation, Recession, Resilience, WALS, WP

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    53

  • Volume:

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  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

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  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2021/018

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2021018

  • ISBN:

    9781513567013

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941