Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223794 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13352
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havocs on economies around the world. Yet, barely any evidence currently exists on the distributional impacts of the pandemic. We provide the first study that offers new theoretical and empirical evidence on the distributional impacts of the pandemic on different income groups in a multi-country setting. Analyzing rich individual-level data from a six-country survey, we find that while the outbreak has no impacts on household income losses, it results in a 65-percent reduction in the expected own labor income for the second-poorest income quintile. The impacts of the pandemic are most noticeable in terms of savings, with all the four poorer income quintiles suffering reduced savings ranging between 5 and 7 percent compared to the richest income quintile. The poor are also less likely to change their behaviors, both in terms of immediate prevention measures against COVID-19 and healthy activities. We also find countries to exhibit heterogeneous impacts. The United Kingdom has the least household income loss and expected labor income loss, and the most savings. Japanese are least likely to adapt behavioral changes, but Chinese, Italians, and South Koreans wash their hands and wear a mask more often than Americans.
Subjects: 
income quintiles
poverty
COVID-19
behavior changes
JEL: 
D00
H00
I1
I3
O1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
1.13 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.