Deng Nana, Wang Bo, Qiu Yueming, Liu Jie, Shi Han, Zhang Bin, Wang Zhaohua
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijng, China.
Research Center for Sustainable Development & Intelligent Decision, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China.
Energy Econ. 2022 Oct;114:106318. doi: 10.1016/j.eneco.2022.106318. Epub 2022 Sep 15.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe economic contraction and paralyzed industrial activity. Despite a growing body of literature on the impacts of COVID-19 mitigation measures, scant evidence currently exists on the impacts of lockdowns on the economic and industrial activities of developing countries. Our study provides an empirical assessment of lockdown measures using 298,354 data points on daily electricity consumption in 396 sub-industries. To infer causal relationships, we employ difference-in-differences models that compare cities with and without lockdown policies and provide quantitative evidence on whether the long-term gain of lockdowns outweighs the short-term loss. The results show that lockdown policies led to a significant short-term drop in electricity consumption of 15.2% relative to the control group. However, the electricity loss under the no-lockdown scenario is 2.6 times larger than that under the strict lockdown scenario within 4 months of the outbreak. Discrepancies in the impacts among industries are identified, and even within the same industry, lockdowns have heterogeneous effects. The impact of lockdowns on small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries is seriously underestimated, raising concerns about the distributional impact of subsidy measures. This study serves as a crucial reference for the government when facing public health emergencies and shocks to support better policies.
新冠疫情导致了严重的经济收缩，并使工业活动陷入瘫痪。尽管关于新冠疫情缓解措施影响的文献越来越多，但目前关于封锁措施对发展中国家经济和工业活动影响的证据却很少。我们的研究利用396个细分行业每日用电量的298,354个数据点，对封锁措施进行了实证评估。为了推断因果关系，我们采用了差分模型，比较了实施和未实施封锁政策的城市，并提供了关于封锁措施的长期收益是否超过短期损失的定量证据。结果表明，与对照组相比，封锁政策导致用电量在短期内显著下降了15.2%。然而，在疫情爆发后的4个月内，未实施封锁情况下的电力损失比严格封锁情况下大2.6倍。研究还发现了各行业之间影响的差异，甚至在同一行业内，封锁也有不同的影响。封锁措施对发展中国家中小企业的影响被严重低估，这引发了人们对补贴措施分配影响的担忧。本研究为政府在面对突发公共卫生事件和冲击时制定更好的政策提供了关键参考。
