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It is important to examine how international economic sanctions affect public health responses and outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for effective global health strategies amidst geopolitical tensions. This research empirically examines how economic sanctions affect the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in target countries for the period February 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022. We use a difference-in-differences (DID) estimator and our sample includes 181 countries, 83 of which are subject to economic sanctions. We document evidence that economic sanctions have a significant negative impact on the spread of the epidemic in the targeted countries by increasing daily confirmed cases and deaths. These negative effects are also more pronounced (i) with a longer duration of sanctions and (ii) for Asian countries. Furthermore, we find that the negative effect of economic sanctions is weaker when government responses are more severe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries around the world are facing enormous challenges in their economic and social development as COVID‐19 continues to spread, resulting in slower economic recovery in the post‐pandemic era. Considering the impact of economic growth on future sustainable development in this new era, green economic recovery (GER) can achieve a win‐win situation between economic recovery and environmental improvement and bring forth environmentally sustainable economic growth. This research first lists related COVID‐19 literature surveys and GER policies in the post‐pandemic era in China. Based on a comparative study of the international experience of GER policy practices, this paper then analyzes the opportunities and challenges China faces for GER and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions on how to promote its sustainable development in the post‐epidemic era. We believe our research presents useful enlightenments for sustainable economic and social development in the post‐epidemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of government epidemic prevention policies on controlling COVID-19 is of great importance to health, politics, and development economics. This paper thus investigates the impacts of government responses on confirmed cases related to COVID-19 in Taiwan for the period January 1, 2020 to May 13, 2021 by employing ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation. Overall, our empirical results indicate that there is a significantly impact of government responses on COVID-19 pandemic spread in Taiwan. In addition, the speed of government responses would significantly affect confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Taiwan. The earlier government epidemic prevention responses led to fewer confirmed cases. After conducting a series of robustness checks, the above conclusions are still robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing with the enormous economic loss resulting from the unexpected outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks around the world began to show a great activeness and implement numerous monetary policies to help mitigate the negative shocks and recover the economy. This paper aims at investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the macroeconomy and whether central bank activeness have helped mitigate the negative shock of the COVID-19. Using the panel fixed effects model and monthly data of 38 countries from January 2020 to June 2021, this paper finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased inflation and unemployment apparently. More importantly, central bank activeness has a positive effect on reducing the growing pressure from the COVID-19 on inflation, while it cannot mitigate the shock of the COVID-19 on unemployment rate. Specially, government others measure, including containment and health, and stringency policies, have little effect in mitigating the negative impact of the pandemic on inflation and unemployment. Our findings suggest that the central bank activeness have heterogeneous effects on different macroeconomic indicators, and cannot mitigate the hurts of the COVID-19 pandemic for all macro indicators during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on panel data of 31 provincial capital cities in the country from January 21 to November 20, 2020, this research empirically analyzes the impacts of daily newly confirmed cases and daily new deaths from COVID-19 on PM10, PM2.5, SO2, CO, and NO2 emissions form green energy consumption by using the method of System Generalized Moments (SYS-GMM). We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has an inhibitory effect on all types of emissions, in that a greater number of confirmed cases and deaths brings about more stringent anti-epidemic policies, fewer emissions, and better air quality in China. Moreover, we use the methods of sample segmentation, cross-sectional regression, and pollutant emissions of the top three cities in terms of GDP to test their robustness. Overall, our evidence advances the debate over air quality after COVID-19, and that evidence from China provides beneficial experiences that correlate to its provincial data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the relationships between stock prices of solar enterprises and the COVID-19 pandemic for 18 enterprises from OECD countries and 3 enterprises from non-OECD countries from January 2, 2020 to March 8, 2021. The empirical results show that there exists a cointegration relationship between the pandemic and solar stock prices. Moreover, the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on solar stock prices exhibit heterogeneity, as the COVID-19 pandemic affects solar stock prices negatively in the full sample and OECD countries, whereas the pandemic negatively affects solar stock prices in both the short run and long run, but the effects are not significant in non-OECD countries. We conduct a series of robustness tests, including changing variables and employing the Markov switching regression for time-series analysis, and the results support our main findings. According to the empirical results, investors should be prudent about investing in solar enterprises, while policymakers should balance pandemic control and maintain economic performance when implementing prevention policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effect of the governments' responses to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic on the returns in the stock market index. Panel data of 20 countries are used spanning January 2 to July 21, 2020, for the dynamic panel model. The results indicate that the overall government response, containment and health, and stringency indices have a significantly positive effect on stock market returns. Specifically, government policy responses of shutting down workplaces, canceling public events, restricting public gatherings and international travel, providing income support, and implementing fiscal measures can increase stock market returns. Our evidence shows that the stock market does not react significantly to government interventions in the health system. We believe that our findings provide valuable information for policymakers and financial investors around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 epidemic has caused a severe impact on global financial markets. Considering that solar energy is an important basis for future energy development, it is particularly imperative to study the destructive effect of COVID-19 on solar energy development. This research thus explores the long-run relationship between COVID-19 and solar enterprises' stock prices in 24 countries from December 31, 2019 to June 4, 2020. We not only use the number of confirmed cases to measure the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic, but also introduce the government response stringency index to capture the severity of the epidemic. Overall, our evidence indicates a cointegration relation between COVID-19 confirmed cases and the stock prices of solar enterprises, as well as between government response stringency and their stock prices. We also confirm that the COVID-19 epidemic has depressed the stock prices of most solar energy sources according to the long-run parameter estimation, especially with the implementation of a government's prevention policy toward COVID-19. It is worth noting in the NON-OECD subsample that the negative impacts of the government response stringency index and confirmed cases on solar stock prices are not significant. Therefore, investors can adopt a hedging strategy to reduce losses caused by any fluctuation of these prices, while policymakers should take several measures such as tax deduction to reduce the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the sustainable development of the solar energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using daily data from January 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, this research explores COVID-19 shocks on the stock market of 15 representative oil exploration and production enterprises from 7 countries. We measure the COVID-19 epidemic from two levels, government response stringency index and number of confirmed cases, and employ stock prices and stock market returns to reflect the stock market. Our research results confirm that both the government response stringency index and the number of confirmed cases have a significantly negative influence on stock prices. We further find that the negative reaction of the stock market to the government response stringency index is greater than that from confirmed cases. Finally, we conclude that the government response stringency index have a significantly positive effect on stock market returns of oil exploration and production enterprises. Similar findings arise from analyzing specific enterprises. Overall, our conclusions provide some useful information for the decision-making of oil exploration and production enterprises' investors and policy makers. • COVID-19 epidemic has a negative impact on the stock prices. • The negative impact on the stock prices is greater the confirmed cases. • Government response stringency significantly increases the stock returns. • Similar findings arise from analyzing specific enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• GRSI significantly negatively impact on the Confirmed and Death of COVID-19, and the effects are especially larger around 14 to 21 days after the implementation of the government response. • The Dumitrescu-Hurlin (D-H) causality test uncovers a statistically significant bi-directional correlation between GRSI and Confirmed as well as between the relationships of GRSI and Death for the full samples. • A bi-directional relationship exists between GRSI and Confirmed, one-way causality runs only from GRSI to Death in Asian countries, a bi-directional relationship exists between GRSI and Death, and causality runs only from GRSI to Confirmed in non-Asian countries. • Asian countries should pay more attention to control COVID-19 related deaths, while the governments in non-Asian countries should be more concerned about COVID-19 confirmed cases. Using daily data of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) covering 118 countries from January 1 to April 13, 2021, this research examines the relationship between the government response stringency index (GRSI) and COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results show that GRSI significantly negatively impacts confirmed cases, and the effects are especially larger around 14 to 21 days after the implementation of the government response. These results are robust through analysis with sub-samples of Asian countries and non-Asian countries, proving that public prevention policies of being isolated for 14 days and being observed for 7 days are effective. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test uncovers a statistically significant bi-directional correlation between government response stringency and COVID-19 pandemic when analyzing the full samples. In terms of the sub-samples, a bi-directional relationship exists between government response stringency and confirmed cases, while one-way causality runs only from government response stringency to deaths in Asian countries. We offer a policy implication that countries all over the world should continue to carry out public prevention policies, and governments in non-Asian countries should be more concerned about confirmed cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]