The Effects and Counter-Effects of Unemployment and Stringency Responses to COVID-19: An International Analysis Using Simultaneous Equations Models

Joshua Ping Ang and Fang Dong

Applied Economics, 2022, vol. 54, issue 11, 1278-1300

Abstract: By applying the data from 59 countries to simultaneous equations models with 3SLS and GMM estimations, we analyse the effects and counter-effects of stringency of movement restrictions on unemployment rate and COVID-19 infection cases. On the one hand, our results show that the unemployment rate rises when the governments impose more stringent movement restrictions. On the other hand, a higher unemployment rate leads the government to lower stringency of movement restrictions. Our findings provide evidence on the tradeoff between unemployment rates and infection cases under the government’s virus containment intervention policies. This allows the policymakers to find a balance between public health emergencies and the economy. We also find that the stringency is affected positively by infection cases, negatively by the number of hospital beds per capita and healthcare spending per capita; the number of infection cases is affected positively by urban population density and negatively by an individualism index; and the unemployment rate is affected negatively by GDP.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2021.1975634 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:54:y:2022:i:11:p:1278-1300

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2021.1975634

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().