European countries’ vulnerability to COVID-19: multicriteria decision-making techniques

Abstract

COVID-19 has triggered an unprecedented health crisis, crippling economic activity around the world. The aim of this paper is to analyse European countries' vulnerability to the associated consequences. The analysis will focus on three areas that a priori are expected to be most severely affected by the pandemic – health, society and work – examining the possible relationship with countries’ wealth. The multicriteria decision-making Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) will be used to generate a ranking of countries based on criteria that define each of these three areas. The findings will provide authorities with quantitative information to guide their aid policies. The results show that Eastern European countries should direct their resources towards addressing health-related and social issues. Conversely, those that have higher GDP per capita and that have been hardest hit by coronavirus will have to make changes to their labour systems in order to minimize the fallout.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• health
• multicriteria
• society
• work

JEL CODES:

• C6; I14; J8; P5

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 As indicated by Karnon (2020), the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis are predominantly falling on low-income earners.

2 These two countries have been excluded because they do not provide complete information on the variables used.

3 World Bank Data.