Estimating the short-term economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic: A regional perspective

Given the economic crisis related to the current COVID-19 pandemic, decision makers need to better understand how to effectively allocate their limited resources to support the most severely affected regions. In this context our research seeks to identify the regions that are economically vulnerable, as well as those that are more resilient, using information on the industries negatively impacted by travel restrictions and social distancing measures. With this aim in view, we propose a vulnerability index calculated using regions’ location coefficients by activity and the forecasted decline of these activities at national level and test it for the Romanian economy. We argue that regional specialisation itself is not the source of the current problems, but the high dependence of many regional economies on economic activities directly affected by measures designed to mitigate the epidemic impact is the root cause of future economic decline.