Systematic and dynamic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on marine economic development, air pollution and energy consumption: A case study of China's coastal regions

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a huge impact on marine economic development, air pollution and energy consumption. However, there is a lack of systematic and quantitative assessment of the impact of the pandemic on the impact on marine economic development, air pollution and energy consumption under a unified framework. To fill this knowledge gap, we used panel data of 11 coastal provinces (municipalities directly under the central government or autonomous regions) in China over the period of 2016–2021. We used the Panel Simultaneous Equation Model (PSEM) to study the systematic impact, and adopt the Panel Vector Autoregression Model (PVAR) to describe the dynamic impact. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has a negative impact on marine economic development and energy consumption, but a positive impact on air pollution. The impact on the marine economy and air pollution follows a trend of increasing, then decreasing, and eventually stabilizing, while the impact on the energy consumption shows a trend of initially decreasing, then increasing, and eventually stabilizing. The study provides valuable policy recommendations for the countries around the world to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, promote marine economic development, control air pollution and stabilize energy consumption.