A General Equilibrium Assessment of COVID-19’s Labor Productivity Impacts on China’s Regional Economies (preprint)
构建了一个数据库和一般均衡模型，估计2020年2月至9月COVID-19对中国各省劳动生产力和福利的月度影响，发现2月劳动生产力平均下降39.5%，福利下降25.9%，但4月起快速恢复。
This study introduces a database that can be used to analyze COVID19’s impacts on China’s regional economies. This database contains various sectoral and regional economic outcomes at the weekly and monthly level. In the context of a general equilibrium trade model, we first formulate a mathematical representation of the Chinese regional economy and calibrate the model with China’s multiregional input-output table. We then utilize the monthly provincial and sectoral value-added and national trade series to estimate COVID-19’s province-by-month labor-productivity impacts from February 2020 to September 2020. Compared to February 2019 levels, we find an average 39.5% decrease in labor productivity (equivalent to around 305 million jobs) and an average 25.9% decrease in welfare across provinces in February 2020. Both labor productivity and welfare have recovered quickly since April 2020. As of September 2020, average provincial labor productivity increased by 12.2% (equivalent to around 94 million jobs) and average welfare increased by 8.2% relative to their September 2019 levels.