“Black swans” and social institutions

Автор: Dementiev Victor E.

Журнал: Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast @volnc-esc-en

Рубрика: Theoretical and methodological issues

Статья в выпуске: 3 т.14, 2021 года.

Бесплатный доступ

The paper considers the COVID-19 pandemic as a manifestation of an upward trend in various kinds of risks on the path of social development. Promoting the adaptive abilities of socio-economic systems becomes an urgent task. We propose to use the experience of various countries in combating the pandemic to analyze the conditions that help to respond effectively to various unforeseen challenges, which are often referred to as “black swans” in modern literature. We present a brief review of the literature that analyzes the differences between countries, which affect their economic development amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We prove that, contrary to popular belief, the continued growth of GDP can be combined with relatively low COVID-19 mortality rates. This conclusion is based on data from 30 countries for the year 2020. We note that the share of the service sector in the economy has a significant impact on the dynamics of GDP in the context of the pandemic. We focus on the relationship between changes in GDP in 2020 and institutional circumstances. We find that it is possible to curb the decline in GDP growth rates primarily in those countries where the population trusts the government. The decline in GDP in some countries under consideration occurs against the background of relatively high information and personal freedom that contributes to a decline in the level of trust in the government in the context of the pandemic. The regression analysis confirms that almost half of the differences between countries in GDP dynamics in 2020 are negatively related to two factors: COVID-19 mortality and information freedom. If the people have no trust in the government, then the efforts it undertakes to adapt to an emergency situation may prove ineffective, and social activity can become destructive. In the future, it would be useful to compare the adaptive capacity of countries in terms of the rate of recovery of their economies after the pandemic.

Еще

Covid-19 pandemic, social institutions, trust, gdp growth rates, adaptation, cross-country differences

Короткий адрес: https://sciup.org/147235416

IDR: 147235416   |   DOI: 10.15838/esc.2021.3.75.3

Список литературы “Black swans” and social institutions

  • Taleb N.N. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House, 2007. 480 p.
  • Minaev V.A., Faddeev A.O. The issue of slow catastrophes. Tekhnologii tekhnosfernoi bezopasnosti=Technology of Technosphere Safety, 2006, no. 2, pp. 32–35. Available at: https://academygps.ru/nauka-5/nauchnye-zhurnaly-i-publikatsii-52/nauchnyy-internet-zhurnal-tekhnologii-tekhnosfernoy-bezopasnosti/vypusk/2006-2027/-2042/ (accessed: February 12, 2021) (in Russian).
  • Mirkin Ya.M. Transformation of the economic and financial structures of the world: the impact of growing shocks of catastrophes. Kontury global'nykh transformatsii: politika, ekonomika, pravo=Outlines of Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, Law, 2020, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 97–116. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23932/2542-0240-2020-13-4-5 (in Russian).
  • Brodeur A., Gray D., Islam A., Bhuiyan S-J. A Literature review of the economics of COVID-19. IZA Institute of labor economics. Discussion paper series no 13411. Available at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp13411.pdf (accessed: September 21, 2020).
  • Baniamin H.M., Rahman M., Hasan, M.T. The COVID-19 pandemic: Why are some countries more successful than others? SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3575251
  • Chaudhry R., Dranitsaris G., Mubashirc T., Bartoszko J., Riazi S. A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes. EClinicalMedicine, 2020, no. 25, 100464. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100464
  • Maor M., Howlett M. Explaining variations in state COVID-19 responses: Psychological, institutional, and strategic factors in governance and public policymaking. Policy Design and Practice, 2020, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 228–241. DOI: 10.1080/25741292.2020.1824379
  • Clarke L., Chess C. Elites and panic: More to feat than fear itself. Social Forces, 2008, vol. 87, no/ 2, pp. 993–1014. DOI:10.1353/sof.0.0155
  • Acemoglu D., Chernozhukov V., Werning I., Whinston M. D. A Multi-Risk SIR Model with Optimally Targeted Lockdown. Working paper no. 27102. National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3386/w27102
  • Capano G., Howlett M., Jarvis D., Ramesh M., Goyal N. Mobilizing policy (in) capacity to fight COVID-19: Understanding variations in national responses. Policy and Society, 2020, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 285–308. DOI: 10.1080/14494035.2020.1787628
  • Toshkov D., Yesilkagit K., Carroll B. Government Capacity, Societal Trust or Party Preferences? What Accounts for the Variety of National Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe? OSF Preprints 7chpu, Center for Open Science, 2020. DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/7chpu
  • Bargain O., Aminjonov U. Trust and Compliance to Public Health Policies in Times of Covid-19. 2020. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3596671
  • Brodeur A., Grigoryeva I., Kattan L. Stay-at-Home Orders, Social Distancing and Trust, 2020. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3602410
  • Barrios J.M., Hochberg Y. Risk Perception through the Lens of Politics in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working paper no. 27008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3386/w27008
  • Durante R., Guiso L., Gulino G. Asocial Capital: Civic Culture and Social Distancing during COVID-19. 2020. DOI: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3611606
  • Balmford B., Annan J.D., Hargreaves J.C., Altoè M., Bateman I.J. Cross-country comparisons of COVID-19: Policy, politics and the price of life. Environmental & Resource Economics, 2020, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 525–551. DOI: 10.1007/s10640-020-00466-5
  • Smithson М. Data from 45 countries show containing COVID vs saving the economy is a false dichotomy. The Conversation, 2020. Available at: https://theconversation.com/data-from-45-countries-show-containing-covid-vs-saving-the-economy-is-a-false-dichotomy-150533 (accessed: December 21, 2020).
  • Sorci G., Faivre B., Morand S. Explaining among-country variation in COVID-19 case mortality rate. Scientific Reports, 2020, vol. 10, no. 1, 18909. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75848-2
  • Liang L.-L., Tseng Ch.-H., Ho H.J., Wi Ch-Y. COVID-19 mortality is negatively associated with test number and government effectiveness. Scientific Reports, 2020, vol. 10, 12567. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68862-x
  • Vásquez I., McMahon F. Human Freedom Index 2020. Cato Institute and Fraser Institute. Available at: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/human-freedom-index-2020.pdf (accessed: January 19, 2021).
Еще
Статья научная