IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/11404.html

Sectoral Productivity Growth, COVID-19 Shocks, and Infrastructure

Author

Listed:
  • Ahumada, Hildegart
  • Cavallo, Eduardo A.
  • Espina-Mairal, Santos
  • Navajas, Fernando

Abstract

This paper examines sectoral productivity shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, their aggregate impact, and the possible compensatory effects of improving productivity in infrastructure-related sectors. We employ the KLEMS annual dataset for a group of OECD and Latin America and the Caribbean countries, complemented with high-frequency data for 2020. First, we estimate a panel vector autoregression of growth rates in sector level labor productivity to specify the nature and size of sectoral shocks using the historical data. We then run impulse-response simulations of one standard deviation shocks in the sectors that were most affected by COVID 19. We estimate that the pandemic cut economy-wide labor productivity by 4.9 percent in Latin America, and by 3.5 percent for the entire sample. Finally, by modeling the long-run relationship between productivity shocks in the sectors most affected by COVID 19, we find that large productivity improvements in infrastructure--equivalent to at least three times the historical rates of productivity gains--may be needed to fully compensate for the negative productivity losses traceable to COVID 19.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahumada, Hildegart & Cavallo, Eduardo A. & Espina-Mairal, Santos & Navajas, Fernando, 2021. "Sectoral Productivity Growth, COVID-19 Shocks, and Infrastructure," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11404, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:11404
    DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0003411
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Sectoral-Productivity-Growth-COVID-19-Shocks-and-Infrastructure.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0003411?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ralf C. Buckley & Mary-Ann Cooper, 2022. "Tourism as a Tool in Nature-Based Mental Health: Progress and Prospects Post-Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-15, October.
    3. Zhao, Kai & Mo, Minjie & Shen, Jun, 2024. "Pandemics and FDI inflows: The role of infrastructures," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 552-566.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:11404. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.