Essays on Economic Implications of COVID-19 [védés előtt]

Kivonat, rövid leírás

The thesis explores economic implications of COVID-19 from micro- to macroeconomic effects focusing on factors that have contributed to resilience against adverse shocks. Four interconnected studies examine how COVID-19 related shocks have affected employee performance, firm performance, and national economic outcomes and competitiveness conditional on various characteristics that have contributed to resilience. The studies - while all building on quantitative, empirical methods - encompass a mix of approaches and data sources. The first two studies focus on the micro-level – firms and employees – and use survey-based data collection and econometric analysis and other statistical methods, such as the Cochran-Armitage and Fisher’s exact tests. The latter two studies focus on the macroeconomic level and employ statistical clustering, econometrics and ex ante economic modelling. The thesis connects these processes across the varied layers of the economy into a comprehensive framework building on Chikan’s (2008, 2018) earlier work and recognizes patterns – related to shocks and resilience – that are common across the various units of analysis. Key findings include: the importance of pre-existing conditions determining (proactive) resilience – examples of this are shown in both micro- and macro-level studies; that adaptation and flexibility (reactive resilience) are often dependent on ongoing support during the adaptation phase. Results further highlight that despite the common notion of a resilience-efficiency trade-off, resilience building can often give rise to several co-benefits, that go beyond avoiding damages from shocks. The thesis, and its parts, contribute to the literature that synthesizes some lessons learned from the COVID-19 induced global economic shocks, while it furthers an understanding of general factors contributing to resilience that are common across various units of analysis.