What does the China’s economic recovery after COVID-19 pandemic mean for the economic growth and energy consumption of other countries?

Abstract

China is the first major economy to show a recovery after a slowdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. This work aims to explore what the China’s economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic means for the economic growth and energy consumption of the other countries using the global VAR quarterly data. In the long term, spillover effects of China's economic growth have the most obvious impact on upper-middle-income countries’ economic growth (0.17%), followed by the economic growth of lower-middle-income countries (0.16%) and high-income countries (0.15%). However, the spillover effect of China’s economic growth has the most significant impact on energy consumption in high-income countries (0.11%∼0.45%), followed by energy consumption in upper-middle-income countries (0.08%∼0.33%) and in lower-middle-income countries (-0.02%∼0.05%). Our results indicate upper-middle-income countries will benefit the most from China’s economic recovery post-COVID-19, followed by lower-middle-income countries and high-income countries. The spillover effect of China’s economic recovery post-COVID-19 brings the most obvious impact on the increase in energy consumption in high-income countries, followed by middle-income countries. It also should be noted that the spillover effect of China's economic growth does not necessarily lead to an increase in energy consumption lower-middle-income countries. Generally, the spillover effect of China’s economic recovery on other countries’ economic growth is much more than other countries’ energy consumption.

Beyond the Pandemic: COVID-19 Pandemic Changed the Face of Life

“…At equilibrium again due to the strong lessons learned during the pandemic, China was the first country to recover and then its effects spilled over to nearby countries by extension. Economic growth was observed to have increased by around 0.17% in upper-middle-income countries, i.e., India, Brazil, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey, and by 15% in high-income countries, i.e., Australia, Canada, those in the European Union, Japan, Korea, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States [ 8 ].…”

“…Stay-at-home orders can reduce activities associated with community spread of the virus, including population movement and close person-to-person contact outside the household. Close contact between family members, relatives, or friends is one cause of COVID-19 spread [ 7 , 8 ]. Stay-at-home orders might assist in limiting potential exposure to COVID-19 and garnered significant public support.…”

Can COVID-19 and environmental research in developing countries support these countries to meet the environmental challenges induced by the pandemic?

“…(2) To get rid of the crisis caused by COVID-19 epidemic, international exchanges and cooperation are essential (Wang and Zhang 2021). Different countries actively respond to COVID-19 according to their own national conditions.…”

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