IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v65y2023i2d10.1007_s00181-022-02349-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic impact of the first wave of the pandemic on 50+ Europeans

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Bonfatti

    (Padua University and Prometeia)

  • Greta Pesaresi

    (Padua University)

  • Guglielmo Weber

    (Padua University and IFS)

  • Nancy Zambon

    (Padua University)

Abstract

We analyse the effects of the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis on the economic situation of 50+ Europeans. We construct a financial distress indicator that captures experiencing an income loss, difficulties to make ends meet and the need to postpone payments. We find that education and income before the pandemic has a protective role, and so does being past retirement age. For households under retirement age, instead, the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities. We also investigate whether households report worse difficulties in making ends meet compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. We show that their ability to make ends meet worsens more with income losses during the pandemic compared to losses experienced in the two-year period before the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Bonfatti & Greta Pesaresi & Guglielmo Weber & Nancy Zambon, 2023. "The economic impact of the first wave of the pandemic on 50+ Europeans," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 607-659, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:65:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-022-02349-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-022-02349-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-022-02349-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-022-02349-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2013. "Consumption and Income Inequality and the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 178-183, May.
    2. Marta Fana & Sergio Torrejón Pérez & Enrique Fernández-Macías, 2020. "Employment impact of Covid-19 crisis: from short term effects to long terms prospects," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 47(3), pages 391-410, September.
    3. Schenker, Nathaniel & Taylor, Jeremy M. G., 1996. "Partially parametric techniques for multiple imputation," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 425-446, August.
    4. Abi Adams-Prassl & Teodora Boneva & Marta Golin & Christopher Rauh, 2022. "The impact of the coronavirus lockdown on mental health: evidence from the United States," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(109), pages 139-155.
    5. Ofer Harel, 2009. "The estimation of R2 and adjusted R2 in incomplete data sets using multiple imputation," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(10), pages 1109-1118.
    6. Angus Deaton, 2021. "COVID-19 and Global Income Inequality," NBER Working Papers 28392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xinhua Gu & Yang Zhang & Xiao Chang, 2017. "The role of financial systems for cross-country differences in the link between income and consumption inequality," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(24), pages 2365-2378, May.
    2. Lichner, Ivan & Lyócsa, Štefan & Výrostová, Eva, 2022. "Nominal and discretionary household income convergence: The effect of a crisis in a small open economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 18-31.
    3. Sirola, Nina, 2023. "Going beyond the call of duty under conditions of economic threat: Integrating life history and temporal dilemma perspectives," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    4. Shane S. Dikolli & John C. Heater & William J. Mayew & Mani Sethuraman, 2021. "Chief Financial Officer Co-option and Chief Executive Officer Compensation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1939-1955, March.
    5. Jeong, Soyun & Fox, Ashley M., 2023. "Enhanced unemployment benefits, mental health, and substance use among low-income households during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    6. Chiara Burlina & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2024. "Inequality, poverty, deprivation and the uneven spread of COVID-19 in Europe," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(2), pages 263-284, February.
    7. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Hericourt, 2017. "The Circular Relationship Between Inequality, Leverage, And Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 463-496, April.
    8. Donatella Saccone, 2021. "Can the Covid19 pandemic affect the achievement of the ‘Zero Hunger’ goal? Some preliminary reflections," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(7), pages 1025-1038, September.
    9. David R. Agrawal & Aline Bütikofer, 2022. "Public finance in the era of the COVID-19 crisis," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(6), pages 1349-1372, December.
    10. Justin Christopher Yang & Andres Roman-Urrestarazu & Carol Brayne, 2018. "Binge alcohol and substance use across birth cohorts and the global financial crisis in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-18, June.
    11. Maaz Gardezi & J. Gordon Arbuckle, 2019. "Spatially Representing Vulnerability to Extreme Rain Events Using Midwestern Farmers’ Objective and Perceived Attributes of Adaptive Capacity," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(1), pages 17-34, January.
    12. Anand, Amitabh & Singh, Sanjay Kumar & Bowen, Melanie & Rangarajan, Deva, 2024. "Strategic renewal during crises - A pragmatist proposition for multinational enterprises in a globalized world," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3).
    13. Polemis, Michael L. & Fafaliou, Irene, 2015. "Electricity regulation and FDIs spillovers in the OECD: A panel data econometric approach," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 110-123.
    14. Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949–2016," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3469-3519.
    15. Yang, Chengyu & Wang, Xupeng, 2023. "Income and cultural consumption in China: A theoretical analysis and a regional empirical evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 102-123.
    16. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-03740701 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Mathonnat, Clément & Williams, Benjamin, 2020. "Does more finance mean more inequality in times of crisis?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(4).
    18. Molina, Teresa & Cho, Yoon Y., 2024. "The Importance of Existing Social Protection Programs for Mental Health in Pandemic Times," IZA Discussion Papers 16737, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Anton Gidehag & Niklas Rudholm, 2021. "How Do Firms Respond to Reduced Labor Costs? Evidence from the 2007 Swedish Payroll Tax Reform," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 315-338, September.
    20. Fischer, Manfred M. & Huber, Florian & Pfarrhofer, Michael, 2018. "The transmission of uncertainty shocks on income inequality: State-level evidence from the United States," Working Papers in Economics 2018-4, University of Salzburg, revised 10 Jan 2019.
    21. Dunfrey Pires Aragão & Andouglas Gonçalves da Silva Junior & Adriano Mondini & Cosimo Distante & Luiz Marcos Garcia Gonçalves, 2023. "COVID-19 Patterns in Araraquara, Brazil: A Multimodal Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-21, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; SHARE; Financial distress; Household economic conditions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:65:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-022-02349-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.