COVID-19 impact on essential and non-essential business in the EU

Douglas MacLean

Journal of Economics and Econometrics, 2020, vol. 63, issue 3, 68-83

Abstract: At EU level, the European Central Bank (Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme, Monetary policy package), the European Investment Bank (Emergency package, Pan-European guarantee fund), the Council of Ministers and the European Commission have taken various measures to support COVID-19-affected workers and companies. Both the support and exposere to pandemic differs between those being designated as an essential or non-essential. We examine the extent to which being designated as an essential or non-essential worker impacts one’s risk of being COVID-positive following the non-essential business closure order in EU Member States. Using individual-level survey data and a difference-in-differences framework, we estimate that workers designated as essential have a 64.5% higher likelihood of being positive for COVID-19 than those classified as non-essential.

Keywords: COVID-19; essential business; non-essential business (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I12 I14 I18 J21 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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