On the impact of the Covid-19 health crisis on GDP forecasting: An empirical approach

Abstract

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Statistical dependence between the GDP growth projection adjustments for the end of 2020 and the health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is detected and quantified for a broad set of countries. A <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$\texttt{rate }$\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> that captures this health impact for each country is contrasted to the difference in GDP growth projections for the end of 2020 released in two subsequent times: 2019 (pre-pandemic) and early 2020 (post-pandemic). The difference of this two variables exhibited a significant rank correlation with the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$\texttt{rate }$\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, and a linear model was successfully fitted, concluding that at the beginning of the pandemic health conditions played a significant role in the GDP projections.</p>