COVID-19 in Ghana: Consequences for Poverty, and Fiscal Implications

Haruna Issahaku and Benjamin Musah Abu

Working Papers from African Economic Research Consortium

Abstract: This paper estimates the poverty consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and its fiscal implications in Ghana using a micro-simulation analytical approach applied to household level data collected in 2016/2017 by the Ghana Statistical Service. The results show that the poverty consequences are massive as poverty increased from a base of 20.5% to 34.0% and drove over 4 million pre-COVID non-poor into poverty. The poverty consequences are triggered by income losses of up to US$ 330 million and equalling 5.4% of monthly GDP. The pandemic has also worsened inequality as inequality rose from a base of 42.1% to 47.5%. The fiscal cost of a universal cash transfer potent enough to restore poverty to pre-COVID level is a monthly expenditure of US$ 186 million, which represents 3.1% of monthly GDP. COVID-induced interventions on water and electricity rebates for three months are less effective in reducing poverty. Disaggregated findings based on locality show varying depths of impact. The policy implications of these findings are important for appropriate interventions to tackle the consequences of the pandemic.

Date: 2020-11-29
Note: African Economic Research Consortium
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://publication.aercafricalibrary.org/handle/123456789/1265 (application/pdf)

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:aer:wpaper:b633f2d1-55a6-463c-8356-a9d6316b6715

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from African Economic Research Consortium Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Daniel Njiru ().