What’s the coronavirus’ impact on the world? Economists get creative in finding data to measure the outbreak’s effects
- Store closures, flight-tracking websites, factory shutdowns and the latest numbers on infections and fatalities are just some of the high-frequency data points economists are scouring for clues on the hit to growth
- The virus has sickened more than 40,000 people around the world, almost 99 per cent in mainland China, killing 910 people with 3,342 recoveries
It’s a mad scramble for the best data: Economists are grappling with ways to gauge the real-time impact of the coronavirus on the world economy, even as the outbreak continues to confound forecasters.
Store closures, flight-tracking websites, factory shutdowns and the latest numbers on infections and fatalities are just some of the high-frequency data points economists are scouring for clues on the hit to growth.
“To track the impact of the virus on the global economy, we have had to look at indicators I have never looked at before in my 25 years of doing macroeconomic forecasting,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist for Deutsche Bank.
We asked a group of economists how they’re tracking the fallout. Here’s a snapshot of their responses:
Torsten Slok, chief economist for Deutsche Bank
Understanding the impact of the virus is all about identifying the transmission channels through which it will impact the global economy, and those include: global tourism, supply chain disruptions, Chinese consumer spending, lower commodity prices, and wealth effects from global lower stock prices, with the last effect probably being more important than the others combined. Put differently, the level of global anxiety and the impact of the “fear factor” in markets is probably what we should worry most about.
Rob Carnell, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at ING Groep NV