Will COVID-19 Have Long-Lasting Effects on Inequality? Evidence from Past Pandemics

This paper provides evidence on the impact of major epidemics from the past two decades on income distribution. The pandemics in our sample, even though much smaller in scale than COVID-19, have led to increases in the Gini coefficient, raised the income share of higher-income deciles, and lowered t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of economic inequality Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 811 - 839
Main Authors Furceri, Davide, Loungani, Prakash, Ostry, Jonathan D., Pizzuto, Pietro
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.12.2022
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
COVID-19
Development Economics
Economic Growth
Economics
Economics and Finance
Employment
International Economics
Pandemics
Political Science
Public Finance
Unemployment
COVID-19
D43
Pandemics
E52
E58
L11
Inequality
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Summary:This paper provides evidence on the impact of major epidemics from the past two decades on income distribution. The pandemics in our sample, even though much smaller in scale than COVID-19, have led to increases in the Gini coefficient, raised the income share of higher-income deciles, and lowered the employment-to-population ratio for those with basic education compared to those with higher education. We provide some evidence that the distributional consequences from the current pandemic may be larger than those flowing from the historical pandemics in our sample, and larger than those following typical recessions and financial crises.
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ISSN:1569-1721
1573-8701
DOI:10.1007/s10888-022-09540-y