Economic Impact Evaluation of COVID-19 Public Health Management Across Countries

COVID-19 crisis has significantly impacted global economic growth. Assessing the economic impacts of various policies is crucial to better public health management (PHM). To incorporate specific PHM policies into a unified framework, prevention and control intensity (PCI) is introduced to quantify the intensity of PHM. Under different PCI, we construct a statistical framework to estimate each economy's counterfactual output, thereby providing two indicators to assess the effectiveness of PHM adopted by certain economies. Empirical analysis measures the effectiveness of PHM in each of the 137 economies during COVID-19 in 2020. Further analysis is conducted through robustness tests and regression discontinuity design. Aggregated results from 137 economies indicate that COVID-19 may have caused global economic losses far exceeding 5.47 trillion US dollars in 2020. Statistical indicators reveal that 39 economies reduced economic loss through PHM, while 25 economies achieved relatively ideal economic output targets. These findings suggest that moderate prevention and control measures can significantly reduce economic losses and highlight the necessity for most countries to strengthen their PHM strategies to enhance economic resilience and recovery.