A lockdown index to assess the economic impact of the coronavirus

Abstract

Like most countries, the Swiss government adopted drastic measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus. These measures were aimed at avoiding close physical proximity between people. The adverse economic consequences of this lockdown policy became immediately apparent, with almost two million workers, or more than every third worker in Switzerland, being put on short-time work within only 6 weeks after the policy's implementation. In an attempt to promptly assess the heterogeneous consequences of this lockdown policy, we computed a lockdown index. This index is based on an occupation's dependence on physical proximity to other people and corrected for certain essential sectors being exempt from this policy. We find that on average, 31% of jobs in Switzerland have been potentially restricted by the lockdown policy. This average masks considerable heterogeneity along many dimensions, with the strongest effects for the large industries hospitality, construction, and arts and entertainment. With respect to the regional variation, we find the strongest effects for the cantons of Obwalden, Uri, Appenzell Innerrhoden, and Valais. Moreover, low-and middle-income individuals are considerably more restricted than high-income ones. We do not find meaningful differences between men and women or urban and rural areas. Finally, we test the explanatory power of the lockdown index for short-time work and unemployment increases by canton and industry until the end of April 2020 and find that it can explain up to 58% of these short-term employment outcomes.

Lessons From the First Wave of COVID-19: Work-Related Consequences, Clinical Knowledge, Emotional Distress, and Safety-Conscious Behavior in Healthcare Workers in Switzerland

“…Several studies have recently examined the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in different countries. They adopted different perspectives, analyzing the effectiveness of governmental policies ( Dergiades et al, 2020 ; Desson et al, 2020 ), epidemiological responses ( Jefferies et al, 2020 ), testing, contact tracing and isolation ( Salathe et al, 2020 ), lockdown policy ( Faber et al, 2020 ), preparation of the healthcare sector ( Barro et al, 2020 ), as well as key learned lessons ( Han et al, 2020 ). However, empirical studies of how such measures are perceived by the healthcare staff, and of how the pandemic has affected their work situation from their own perspective, are still scarce.…”

Healthcare workers’ knowledge, risk perception, safety-relevant practices, and work situation during the COVID-19 pandemic: A quantitative survey from Switzerland

“…1.4 Literature on work-related consequences, policy, and adherence to guidelines The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare systems, as well as the reactions by healthcare institutions and governments, have been the subject of several recent studies from different countries. These studies have focused on topics such as the initial preparation and first reaction after the outbreak, [20] strategies of contact tracing and isolation as the pandemic evolved, [21] protective equipment for healthcare staff, [22] work risks in the healthcare sector, [23] lockdown measures, [24] governmental policy effectiveness, [25,26] and key lessons to be learned. [27] Nevertheless, our study closes a gap by focusing specifically on healthcare workers/students and their experiences, assessment, and knowledge as a source of quantitative empirical information, while such data is still scarce: Spiller et al [12] found that hours worked by Swiss healthcare workers had increased during the height of the first pandemic wave but afterward did not fully converge back to the levels before the pandemic.…”

Firms’ participation in the Swiss COVID-19 loan programme

“…To ensure exogeneity, our preferred measures are a lockdown index, which relies on physical proximity, and a home office index, which relies on the possibility to perform tasks at home. Faber, Ghisletta, and Schmidheiny ( 2020 ) built the index by using the Occupational Information Network ( ONET ) survey, which asks workers questions about the level of physical proximity that is required in their occupation. Individual survey answers are translated into an index that is available for economic sectors within cantons, yielding a total of 469 groups.…”

“…The lowest index values are found in sectors, such as financial and insurance activities, or agriculture, whereas the highest values are found in sectors such as accommodation or construction. 24 Faber et al (2020 ) also compute a home office index with the ONET survey. The home office index can be used as an alternative measure of lockdown restrictions.…”

“…3 Main explanatory variables by firm participation. Sources : FSO (BUR), JANUS, Faber et al (2020) , SECO, SNB, FOPH, FSO, CompNet. See main text for details.…”