Open AccessAre Resource-Rich Regions Impacted More by Covid-19 Pandemic? Comparing Economic and Mobility Impact in Indonesia’s Provinces
Author(s) -
Rian Hilmawan,
Yesi Aprianti
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of economics and statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2309-0685
DOI - 10.46300/9103.2021.9.9
Subject(s) - geography , recreation , pandemic , tourism , java , covid-19 , socioeconomics , natural resource , economic impact analysis , ecology , economics , biology , medicine , disease , archaeology , pathology , computer science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , microeconomics , programming language
The coronavirus pandemic has caused negative impact on economy as it limits people interactions from their normal life. This paper tries to compare the effects on economic growth and visits by locals to central economic places (retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy stores, parks, and workplaces) of Covid-19 in Indonesia’s provinces as social restrictions applied. By using Google’s mobility report data combined with the second quarterly GRDP data across Indonesia’s sub-national level, we compare economic and mobility performances between “the treated provinces” located in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua Islands (SKP) who’s their economy has been dominated by natural resources-based sectors (e.g., palm oil, natural gas, oil and coal) and “the untreated provinces” in Java-Bali-and Eastern Regions (Sulawesi, Maluku, Nusa Tenggara), henceforth JBE. We visualize and provide scatterplots to depict relationships between selected variables. We also test whether each impact differs between SKP and JBE. Our study finds that while almost all provinces have been impacted negatively during the pandemic, its effects graphically differ among regions, while Java’s provinces have looked to be affected strongly. However, our statistical analyses based on Welch’s and Levene’s tests provide weak evidence that the pandemic harms regions disproportionately.