How do economic activities spur the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia? A dynamic panel data analysis

ABSTRACT

Russia is one of the few countries in the world that has opted for almost no policy measures involving the strong suppression of economic activity in the face of the epidemic disaster brought about by the new coronavirus (COVID-19). This makes Russia a valuable subject of social experiments through which the association between economic activity and the spread of the virus can be explored. This paper presents a dynamic panel data analysis to examine the extent to which different types of economic activity contribute to the spread of COVID-19 infection using monthly and quarterly panel data of Russian regions between March 2020 and April 2021. The results strongly supported our expectation that economic activities have a greater impact on the levels of COVID-19 transmission when they involve a larger number of inhabitants or stimulate greater consumption or social activities among citizens. It was also revealed that Russian regions vary greatly in terms of the routes that link economic activity to the spread of COVID-19. These results have important policy implications for current and future epidemic control.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• economic activity
• dynamic panel data analysis
• Russia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI Grant Nos. 19KK0036 and 20H01489) and the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University. I thank two anonymous reviewers of the journal, Yuko Adachi, Hirofumi Arai, Richard Connolly (Editor-in-Chief), Norio Horie, Yoshisada Shida, and participants in the Online International Conference ‘30 Years of Post-Soviet Transition in Russia and CIS: A View from East Asia’ organized by the Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences, on 12 October 2021, for their helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Tammy Bicket and Mai Shibata for their editorial assistance. Needless to say, all remaining errors are mine.