Using mobility measures to explain short-run economic performance during COVID’s first wave

Main Article Content

Gover Barja https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1195-9423

Keywords

ARMAX models, Google mobility, COVID-19 policies, Economic activity, Bolivia

Abstract

People’s mobility behavior and self-correcting economic forces are shown to be key variables in explaining the observed contraction and recovery of the Bolivian economy during Covid’s first wave. ARMAX models are used to explain the growth rate of the monthly index of economic activity in terms of changes in the rate of mobility measures produced by Google, which are argued to capture the complex interactive dynamics of Covid epidemiology, Covid policy and people’s own decisions to minimize health risks, however generating a trade-off with inevitable economic sacrifice, thus affecting aggregate economic activity.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Abstract 1370 | PDF Downloads 1295

References

Bakker, B.B. & Goncalves, C. (2021). Covid-19 in Latin America: A high toll on lives and livelihoods. IMF Working Paper WP/21/168.

Bargain, O. & Aminjonov, U, (2020). Poverty and Covid-19 in developing countries. Bordeaux Economics Working Papers BxWP2020-08. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03258229/document

Barja, G. (2021). Graphing and measuring Covid’s first wave impact on the Bolivian economic activity: Facing the unknown. Latin American Journal of Economic Development 36: 7-42.

Box, G.E.P. & Jenkins, G.M. (1970). Time series analysis, forecasting and control. San Francisco: Holden-Day.

Box, G.E.P., Jenkins, G.M. & Reinsel, G.C. (1994). Time series analysis, forecasting and control, 3rd edition Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Carrieri, V., De Paola, M. & Gioia, F. (2020). The health-wealth trade-off during the Covid-19 pandemic: Community matters. IZA Institute of Labor Economics Discussion paper IZA DP 13943. https://ftp.iza.org/dp13943.pdf

Castilleja-Vargas, L. (2020). Bolivia: Hacia una recuperación económica resiliente y sostenible en tiempos post Covid-19. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo Documento de Discusión IDB-DP-00797.

Ceylan, R.F., Ozkan, B. & Mulazimogullari, E. (2020). Historical evidence for economic effects of Covid-19. The European Journal of health economics 21: 817-823.

Davidson, R. & J.G. MacKinnon (2004). Econometric theory and methods. New York, Oxford University Press.

ECLAC (2021). Covid-19 Observatory in Latin America and the Caribbean: Economic and social impact. United Nations: https://www.cepal.org/en/topics/covid-19

Famiglietti, M. & Laibovici, F. (2021). The impact of health and economic policies on the spread of Covid-19 and economic activity. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2021-005B. https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2021/2021-005.pdf

Fukao, M. & Shioji, E. (2021). Is there a trade-off between Covid-19 control and economic activity? Implications from the Phillips curve debate. Asian Economic Policy Review 9999: 1-20.

Furceri, D., Ganslmeier, M., Ostry, J.D. & Yang, N. (2021). Initial output losses from the Covid-19 pandemic: Robust determinants. IMF Working Paper WP/21/18.

Glaubitz, A. & Feng, F. (2020). Oscillatory dynamics in the dilemma of social distancing. Proceedings Royal Society 476: 20200686. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2020.0686

Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports. (2021). Google COVID-19 Community Trends. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-mobility-trends

Hall, R.E., Jones, C.I. & Klenov, P.J. (2020). Trading off consumption and Covid-19 deaths. Stanford University and NBER Working Paper 20-026. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27340/w27340.pdf

IGAE (2008-2020). Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). La Paz. https://www.ine.gob.bo/index.php/estadisticas-economicas/indice-global-de-actividad-economica-igae/

International Monetary Fund. (2021). World Economic Outlook: Recovery during the Pandemic – Health concerns, Supply disruptions, Price pressures. Washington, DC, October.

Kennedy, D., Ritchie, H., Bausch, D., Roser, M. & Seale, A. (2021). How experts used data to identify emerging Covid-19 success stories. Exemplars in Global Health. https://www.exemplars.health/emerging-topics/epidemic-preparedness-and-response/covid-19/finding-covid-19-success-stories

Sampi, J. & Jooste, C. (2020). Nowcasting economic activity in times of Covid-19: An approximation from the Google Community Report. World Bank Group Policy Research Working Paper 9247.

Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. (2021). Stringency Index. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-stringency-index

Pragyan, D., Furceri, D., Ostry, J.D. & Tawk, N. (2020). The economic effects of Covid-19 containment measures. IMF Working Paper WP/20/158.