Economic and Welfare Effects of COVID-19 and Responses in Ethiopia: Initial Insights

The Novel Coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic is a global challenge that requires coordinated efforts from governments, individuals, businesses, and various stakeholders. The world economy is experiencing a historic and unprecedented shocks as the pandemic triggers a number of shocks simultaneously including health, supply, demand and financial shocks. Efforts by governments to control the COVID-19 pandemic through partial and full business closures unavoidably leads to general decline in economic activities domestically and globally. This contraction in economic activities leads to economic recession if the pandemic lasts for a prolonged period of time. Generally, fears of economic slowdown are real and taking deep root. The effect of decline in economic growth would make massive disruption in various sectors. It is, therefore, necessary to estimate the economic and welfare impacts of the coronavirus in the context of Ethiopia in order to design effective strategies that would minimize shocks to health and economic activities. The objective of this study is to quantify economic and welfare effects of the pandemic and to suggest potential interventions to contain the pandemic.