Examining the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in India through Daily Electricity Consumption and Nighttime Light Intensity

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

The Covid-19 shock on a low-carbon grid: Evidence from the nordics

“…The most consistent finding across geographies is that the Covid-19 pandemic was associated with a dramatic fall in consumption. Beyer (2020) estimate a drop of 25% in energy consumption in India through an analysis of satellite imagery of nighttime brightness. Fezzi and Fanghella (2020) find a short-run decline in electricity consumption of approximately 30% in Italy following lock-downs, and uses this to estimate the effect of lock-downs on a corresponding fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).…”

Lights Out? COVID-19 Containment Policies and Economic Activity

“…However, the monthly composite still includes some temporary lights like fires and gas flaring and filtering out background noise strengthens the relationship of nighttime lights and economic activity. Following Beyer et al (2020), we hence consider only lights outside a background noise mask. For the latter, we identify different clusters by removing outlier observations, averaging cells over time, and clustering areas based on their nighttime light intensity.…”

“…Most notably, Henderson et al (2012) argue that for countries with poor national income accounts, the optimal estimate of growth is a composite measure with roughly equal weights on conventionally measured growth and growth predicted from nighttime lights. Nighttime lights track economic activity in India closely (Prakash et al 2019;Beyer et al 2020), and provide a useful approximation of economic activity at high spatial granularity (Gibson et al 2017;Chanda and Kabiraj 2020). In a recent study, Chodorow-Reich et al (2020) use cross-sectional differences 3 in nighttime light growth to assess the effect of the 2016 Indian banknote demonetization.…”

“…While 4 disruptive in the short-run, Correia et al (2020) show that stricter government interventions in cities in the United States during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic had positive economic impacts in the medium run. Beyer et al (2020) employ state-level daily electricity consumption to assess the economic cost of the uniform lockdown during March and April 2020 in India and use monthly nighttime light intensity to explain drivers of district-level heterogeneity.…”

Mobile Positioning Data: Prediktor Produk Domestik Regional Bruto (PDRB) Pada Masa Pandemi

“…Namun demikian, indikator ekonomi tersebut memiliki keterbatasan. Angka PDB pada umumnya diperoleh dengan cara konvensional, seperti melalui survei atau pengumpulan data sehingga tidak tersedia dalam waktu singkat (Beyer, Franco-Bedoya, & Galdo, 2020). Padahal untuk dapat merumuskan kebijakan strategis secara cepat dan tepat ditengah kondisi pandemi, pemerintah membutuhkan data dan informasi yang dapat menggambarkan perkembangan dan situasi perekonomian yang tersedia dalam waktu relatif singkat.…”