Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the socio-economic development of the region

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the consequences of economic instability caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic for the socio‑economic development of the region. The study was carried on the example of the Sverdlovsk region according to the Federal State Statistics Service. The article sets and solves three research problems. First, to assess how the overall socio‑economic condition of the region has changed because of the COVID‑19 pandemic. Second, to identify the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic on the nature and structure of the relationship between the socio‑economic indicators of the region. Third, to analyze the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic on the trends in the socio‑economic indicators of the region, considering their possible delay and seasonal fluctuations. The first task is solved using statistical methods of pattern recognition, the second task — by methods of multivariate correlation analysis, and for the third task stochastic time series models are used. The largest contribution to the division into clusters was made by the number of births, the turnover of public catering and the volume of goods, works and services performed on their own; their dynamics most clearly traces the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic in the Sverdlovsk region. Multidimensional correlation analysis established that because of the introduction of restrictive and supportive measures, multidirectional trends in the socio‑economic indicators of the region were formed, which violated the previously established relationships between them. Based on the obtained coefficients of the autoregressive model, one can find a certain pattern consisting in the growth of the influence of short‑term (lag 1 and 3 months) and the decrease of the long‑term influence (lag 12 months) change in indicators. According to the calculations obtained, the economy of the Sverdlovsk region during the analyzed period failed to overcome the destabilizing effect of the consequences of the COVID‑19 pandemic.