Pandemic Shock Research Articles

Gender Inequality in Research Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

We study the disproportionate impact of the lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak on female and male academics' research productivity in social science. The lockdown has caused substantial disruptions to academic activities, requiring people to work from home. How this disruption affects productivity and the related gender equity is an important operations and societal question. We collect data from the largest open-access preprint repository for social science on 41,858 research preprints in 18 disciplines produced by 76,832 authors across 25 countries over a span of two years. We use a difference-in-differences approach leveraging the exogenous pandemic shock. Our results indicate that, in the 10 weeks after the lockdown in the United States, although total research productivity increased by 35 percent, female academics' productivity dropped by 13.2 percent relative to that of male academics. We also show that this intensified productivity gap is more pronounced for assistant professors and for academics in top-ranked universities and is found in six other countries. Our work points out the fairness issue in productivity caused by the lockdown, a finding that universities will find helpful when evaluating faculty productivity. It also helps organizations realize the potential unintended consequences that can arise from telecommuting.

Implementation of Anti-Crisis Measures for the Population and Business in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the macroeconomic situation worldwide, and for Russia these changes can be particularly dramatic. Over the past seven years, the Russian economy has been stagnating, with all the associated negative trends - capital outflows, declining investment in fixed assets and human capital, and progressive aging of fixed assets. What makes the current situation difficult is the sharp decline or even complete lack of income in the industries most affected by the pandemic shock. This has already led to the mass withdrawal of many small and medium enterprises with no reserves from the market, disruption of production linkages, increased unemployment, and, ultimately, increased poverty. Aim . The presented study aims to summarize, assess, and develop proposals for improving the system of anti-crisis social and business support in Russia with allowance for foreign experience and the fiscal capacity of the monetary system of the Russian Federation. Tasks . The authors examine theoretical concepts that determine the types of economic shocks associated with the pandemic; analyze the predicted impact of COVID-19 on GDP growth in developed and developing countries; consider the main fiscal and tax incentives in international practice; assess the scope of incentives in various countries and in Russia; describe anti-crisis measures taken in Russia at the federal level and in the Kursk region; identify key directions for improving the mechanism and tools of credit and tax policy implementation in Russia. Results . The study determines the potential revenue losses of the Russian budget system and compares Russian practices at the federal level and in the Kursk region with foreign experience. On this basis, the authors assess the effectiveness of anti-crisis measures in Russia with allowance for the requirements and capacity of the fiscal response of the budget system. It is established that the most efficient option involves a comprehensive set of tools to support the Russian economy, some of which would be able to compensate for reduced demand, while others would support businesses and families in the affected sectors of the economy. To this end, it is necessary to continue using various channels to provide support for affected consumers, including by easing monetary policy, granting installments on loans, taxes, utility bills, and direct budgetary and extra-budgetary funding of families left without sources of income. Conclusions . Analysis of the current economic situation in Russia shows that the unique scale of the COVID-19 threat calls for systematic government support measures. The spread of the pandemic crisis and restrictive measures has affected all sectors of the economy. This is why national regulatory and administrative authorities have been taking unprecedented measures to support the population and business since the early days of coronavirus detection in the country. Funds from budgets of all levels and social extra-budgetary funds have been allocated for this purpose, and commercial banks act as guarantors in preferential loans. These circumstances raise the controversial issue of the scope of incentives that can be allowed and whether it can coincide with the scope of necessary anti-crisis measures. The authors provide answers to these questions in this study.

Pandemics and Oil Shocks

At the onset of coronavirus in January 2020, crude oil price was around $51.63 per barrel. But the subsequent spread of the virus across countries all over the world adversely impacted the day-to-day functioning of major industries, corporations, and economies. This adverse impact was amplified by the lockdown measures by governments who were justifiably concerned about the potential devastating effect of the pandemic. As the outbreak intensified, so did oil prices plunge into historic lows (at some point, negative). Is the precipitous drop in oil prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic or are there potentially other factors at play? In this paper, we investigate this question using a pentavariate structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. Specifically, we identify an exogenous oil price shock arising from the pandemic together with the traditional underlying supply, demand, and financial market shocks to global crude oil markets. We find that a pandemic shock causes a delayed adverse effect on oil prices. In addition, our findings lend support to the view that changes in financial market conditions that affect financial investment decisions also play a significant role in oil price movements. There is however no evidence of a strong impact emanating from the brief Russia-Saudi price war. We also compute the forecast error variance decomposition and find that the impact of a pandemic shock together with aggregate demand and financial market shocks are not trivial in the short run. Taken together, the findings underscore the fruitfulness of research aimed at better understanding the effects of a pandemic shock on oil price movements and highlight the need for policymakers and market stakeholders to explicitly consider global health conditions when analyzing the causes and consequences of oil price shocks.

Transatlantischer Handelskonflikt und die deutsche Wirtschaft: Auf die Dauer kommt es an

ZusammenfassungAuch in der Corona-Krise schwelen internationale Handelskonflikte weiter. So verschärfte die US-Regierung Mitte Mai 2020, mitten in der Corona-Krise, noch einmal die Exportbeschränkungen für Zulieferer des chinesischen Telekommunikationsausrüsters Huawei. Angesichts des dramatischen Nachfrageeinbruchs bei den Automobilherstellern kann deshalb auch nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass Donald Trump seine protektionistische Idee, die Einfuhr von Autos und Autoteilen aus der EU mit Strafzöllen zu belegen, wiederbeleben und damit auch den transatlantischen Handelskonflikt neu anfachen könnte. Simulationen zeigen, dass ein solcher Konflikt insbesondere bei einer Ausweitung der Zölle auf weitere Sektoren und einer längeren Dauer der deutschen Wirtschaft spürbaren Schaden zufügen könnte.

Trump\u2019s Trade Policy, BREXIT, Corona Dynamics, EU Crisis and Declining Multilateralism

Since 1991 there has been a reinforcement of the World Market Economy, not least since China and the, then new Russian Federation have joined the World Trade Organization and because of EU Eastern enlargement and ASEAN integration deepening, while the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations seemed to indicate stronger regional integration dynamics. With the Trump Administration, the situation has changed dramatically as President Trump is supportive of neither multilateralism in general nor of the EU, which is weakened through BREXIT, in particular. Trump’s focus on the US merchandise trade balance deficit is ill-placed and import tariffs imposed on China seem to be excessive as the optimum tariff rate is miscalculated on the basis of the traditional formula – while a new adequate formula would include the role of sectoral US outward FDI stocks. Asia, the EU and the US could define fighting the Corona World Recession as a global public good, but the United States is weakened in the corona pandemic crisis; the EU is facing serious problems in avoiding a Euro Crisis 2 problem and the €750 billion EU loan package could undermine the Eurozone’s stability while being inadequate to minimize the risk of a Euro Crisis 2. At the same time, the prospects for EU cooperation are declining due to political disappointment concerning the national corona pandemic policy in some member countries. An effective anti-corona pandemic policy would mean to organize a consistent EU-ASEAN cooperation or a G20 cooperation with a later extension to UN Organizations, including the IMF, the World Bank and the WHO. Post-corona, global governance could change strongly because of the long-term political scarring effects of the pandemic shock which could undermine EU and Western stability. Networked international leadership in support of multilateralism is an innovative – but difficult - option for EU-ASEAN-Mercosur.

포스트 코로나를 대비하는 예술교육: 언택트 시대의 몸교육에 관한 소고

This study began as a pandemic shock urging us to change our way of life. Is body-based education in the age of untouched a crisis or an opportunity? It summarize an idea of arts education combined with technology that will be divided before and after COVID-19.

Remote Work and Employment Dynamics under Covid-19: Evidence from Canada

We find that 41 percent of jobs in Canada can be performed remotely, with significant variation across provinces, cities and industries. We complement this with labor micro data and document facts on the relationship between remote work feasibility and income inequality, gender, age and other worker characteristics. We then show that workers in occupations less likely to be able to work remotely experienced larger employment losses between February and March but not between March and April. This suggests that the pandemic shock hit harder and sooner those workers that could not work from home. As the crisis spread to the rest of the economy, the speed of job destruction converged across occupations, in line with occupation/sector complementarities and input-output linkages.

The Political Economy of Pandemics

The COVID-19 policy responses represent an unprecedented challenge. Policy- makers worldwide, have to react fast to a totally new type of crisis under enhanced public scrutiny, as their policies are immediately compared across countries. We show how relative comparisons induce herding when policymakers are concerned by their popularity, and we discuss its extent under different scenarios. This policy contagion induce some countries to choose less efficient policies than they would in isolation or when facing a less correlated shock. Further, when shocks arrive se- quentially, first movers prompt coordination on their policies of later movers, albeit inducing less distortions than when shocks are simultaneous. On average, how- ever, the policy coordination triggered by a common pandemic shock improves welfare by disciplining biased policy agendas.

Pandemic (COVID‐19) Policy, Regional Cooperation and the Emerging Global Production Network†

In this paper, we explore the possible policy responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic shock as well as the related economic (financial crisis) shocks on trade and global value chains (GVC) in East Asia. We find that regional policy coordination is critical to mitigate and isolate the pandemic shock. It is important to identify the pandemic events early to flatten the pandemic curve at the national and regional level. This supports a recent study by the World Bank (2020), which highlights the importance of early mitigation policies during the pandemic shock. The cost of the pandemic and economic shocks will increase significantly when several countries in the region experience the pandemic shock concurrently. In this case, flattening the regional pandemic curve becomes important. The results also indicate the need for greater coordination in East Asia to mitigate the pending economic shock in terms of unemployment, corporate bankruptcy and financial market fragility. The paper also highlights that the stability of the GVC network is critical during the pandemic in terms of hedging the risk of disruptions to the procurement of critical medical and health products as well as maintaining service linkages to manufacturing, such as the logistics sector. Regional policy coordination and the stability of GVC will be valuable in the post‐pandemic recovery of the region.

КОМПАНИИ НЕФТЯНОГО СЕКТОРА В ПЕРИОД НЕФТЯНОГО КРИЗИСА – 2020

In order to prevent the consequences of the pandemic, governments were forced to take radical measures that restrict the mobility of the population, which had a negative impact on the oil market, which is based on the transport sector. The article discusses how such market fluctuations affect the market environment and the behavior of companies. Reductions in revenues and profits caused by falling demand and oil prices, forced companies to resort to cost optimization, including staff cuts and budget cuts in investment programs. The article shows how changes in the behavior of stakeholders represented by the state, investment banks, and civil society affect the activities of oil companies during the pandemic. It describes the impact of short- and medium-term consequences of the pandemic on long-term trends in the energy sector. The Russian Government faces a difficult task of combining two characteristics in the oil industry: an industry that can pull the entire economy out through its growth due to a multiplicative effect in the face of global environmental challenges, and an industry that is the main source of income that determines the country's financial condition. While the renewable energy sector is making a breakthrough in its development, the oil industry is forced to reduce investment in conditions of resource scarcity. If before the crisis, the profitability of the oil business could provide oil companies with investment resources for new projects, the pandemic shock and difficulties in overcoming it forced oil companies to reconsider their investment plans for an indefinite period. Despite the fact that it is not possible to predict the final consequences of the crisis, many industry giants have already announced a revision of their strategies in accordance with the growing trends for greening.

Does ESG Disclosure Transparency Help Mitigate the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock? An Empirical Analysis of Listed Firms in the UK

This paper examines whether the transparency in ESG reporting helps listed firms in the UK better mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigate 179 listed firms from August 2019 to May 2020. The results show that the performance spread of firms with high ESG disclosure score is less negatively impacted by firm internal and external factors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the ESG transparency helps reduce the volatility. However, we find no evidence that the ESG reporting transparency helps improve the stock performance. Therefore, ESG reporting transparency helps firms better resist to extreme shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Migration and Risk in LDCs

The authors develop the hypothesis that aversion to risk rather than expectations of higher income is the primary motivation for rural-urban migration in developing countries. This hypothesis maintains that an optimizing risk-averse small-farmer family will try to place a family member in the urban sector in order to diversify its income portfolio. An additional hypothesis related to risk is also considered at the individual rather than the family level. (ANNOTATION)

The Costs and Returns of Human Migration

The Costs and Returns of Human Migration