Can the Social Network Hinder the Impact of COVID-19 on Economic Uncertainty? New Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic uncertainty and its spillover network based on social network analysis. The study constructs the inter-provincial Chinese economic uncertainty spillover network using a mixed frequency dataset and the provincial social network using microblog user data. Furthermore, the temporal exponential random graph model is used to analyze the impact of COVID-19 and social network during three periods. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affects China’s provincial economic uncertainty and social network significantly hinders economic uncertainty spillover networks. The inhibitory effect of social networks on uncertainty spillover network has regional heterogeneity, which is more significant in provinces severely affected by the pandemic and strictly controlled.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• economic uncertainty
• spillover effect
• social network

JEL:

• F015
• F019.3

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the insightful comments and suggestions from the Editor and two anonymous referees on the earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1540496X.2023.2178844

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study can be obtained by sending an email to the corresponding author

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The National Social Science Fund of China [grant numbers 21&ZD149].