COVID-19 economic vulnerability and resilience indexes: Global evidence.

Abstract

This study complements the extant literature by constructing COVID‐19 economic vulnerability and resilience indexes using a global sample of 150 countries categorised into four principal regions: Africa, Asia‐Pacific and the Middle East, America, and Europe. Seven variables are used for the vulnerability index and nine for the resilience index. Both regions and sampled countries are classified in terms of the two proposed and computed indexes. The classification of countries is also provided in terms of four scenarios pertaining to vulnerability and resilience characteristics: low vulnerability‐low resilience, high vulnerability‐low resilience, high vulnerability‐high resilience, and low vulnerability‐high resilience to illustrate sensitive, severe, asymptomatic, and best cases, respectively. The findings are relevant to policy makers, especially as they pertain to decision‐making in resource allocation in the fight against the global pandemic.