The economic impact of COVID-19: losses and resilience factors

This study proposes a numerical assessment of the economic loss associated with COVID-19 across 46 countries. We estimate these losses by forecasting each country’s counterfactual GDP, that is, the GDP that would have occurred in the absence of the pandemic, using a hybrid WT–QPSO–ANFIS model. Comparing the forecasted values with actual GDP in 2020–2021 allows us to quantify the economic consequences associated with the pandemic. The results show that the hybrid model delivers the best predictive performance relative to conventional forecasting approaches and indicates average GDP growth reductions of 6.32% in 2020 and 2.87% in 2021. To further examine cross-country differences in these outcomes, we analyze macroeconomic and pandemic-related factors associated with economic loss using panel regression analysis. The findings suggest that higher government debt, lower foreign exchange reserves, and stricter containment measures are associated with larger economic losses, while higher vaccination rates are associated with lower losses.