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The informal economy at times of COVID-19 pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Guo, Feng
  • Huang, Yiping
  • Wang, Jingyi
  • Wang, Xue

Abstract

We provide a first view of vulnerable informal economy after the blows from COVID-19, using transaction-level business data of around 80 million offline micro businesses (OMBs) owners from the largest Fintech company in China and employing machine learning method for causal inference. We find that the OMBs activities in China experienced an immediate and dramatic drop of 50% during the trough. The businesses had rebounded to around 80% of where they should be seven weeks after the COVID-19 outbreak, but had remained at this level until the end of our time window. We find a larger disruption to the OMBs in urban areas, the female merchants and the merchants who were not grown up in the places where they conducted businesses. We discuss the implications for policy support to the most vulnerable, and highlight the importance to take full advantage of digital development to follow up the informal economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Guo, Feng & Huang, Yiping & Wang, Jingyi & Wang, Xue, 2022. "The informal economy at times of COVID-19 pandemic," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:71:y:2022:i:c:s1043951x21001401
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101722
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Sugata Marjit & Gouranga Gopal Das, 2022. "Immunity-Driven Comparative Advantage and Its Palliative Effect on Social Health and Inequality - A Theoretical Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 9569, CESifo.
    3. Shiqi Jiang & Lingli Qi & Xinyue Lin, 2022. "The Impacts of COVID-19 Shock on Intergenerational Income Mobility: Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-20, September.
    4. Seržantė Milena & Pakalka Algimantas, 2022. "Assessment of the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Service Sector in Lithuania," Economics and Culture, Sciendo, vol. 19(2), pages 57-69, December.
    5. Marjit, Sugata & Das, Gouranga G., 2023. "Immunity-driven Comparative Advantage and its Palliative Effect on Social Health and Inequality: A Theoretical Perspective," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1252, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Liu, Zhenhua & Zhang, Huiying & Ding, Zhihua & Lv, Tao & Wang, Xu & Wang, Deqing, 2022. "When are the effects of economic policy uncertainty on oil–stock correlations larger? Evidence from a regime-switching analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    7. Dai, Xingyu & Li, Matthew C. & Xiao, Ling & Wang, Qunwei, 2022. "COVID-19 and China commodity price jump behavior: An information spillover and wavelet coherency analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Offline micro businesses; Informal economy; Machine learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market
    • L84 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Personal, Professional, and Business Services

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