The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the development of selected regions of UE countries

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the considerations presented in the paper was to examine the changes that occurred in both population and GDP size and in selected economic sectors as a result of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the highlighted EU regions. Design/methodology/approach: The paper examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the population of selected EU regions, GDP in those regions, and the impact of the pandemic on the unemployment rate, the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the number of nights spent in overnight accommodations, the number of passengers traveling by air, the number of people who ordered goods or services online in the past year, and employment in high-tech sectors. The impact was examined by analyzing development trend models for selected variables and verifying the hypothesis of constancy of model parameters with the Chow test. Predictions of selected variables were also counted if there had been no pandemic and compared to actual values from the COVID-19 pandemic period. Findings: Not all regions were equally affected by the effects of the pandemic. This was undoubtedly influenced by the authorities' struggle with the effects of the pandemic, but also by the entrepreneurial spirit of the residents of the regions studied. Also in different spheres of economic life, the effects of the pandemic varied from negative to positive. Research limitations/implications: Further research should also include the other EU regions and more economic sectors, allowing us to group regions according to similarities in coping with the pandemic and calculate spatial correlations. A problem we may encounter is the lack of sufficient data, which may result in the exclusion of some regions and economic sectors from the study. Social implications: Through the research, we can highlight regions that are coping better with the effects of a pandemic, and this can inspire regions that are coping less well. In the future, regions can look up to the actions carried out by authorities in other regions to offset the effects of pandemics (or other disasters with global effects) and transfer them to their own region. Originality/value: The article compares regions within the boundaries of which are national capitals. It was shown which region did best in combating the effects of the pandemic and which did less well. The article also shows what the impact of the pandemic was on the various branches of the economy. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, trend models, Chow test.