The Economic Linkages of Covid-19 Across Sectors and Regions in the UK

COVID-19疫情对不同国家及地区的影响在严重程度及病例数目方面均有所不同。因此，各国不同地区可能需要不同的政策，以有效应对新冠肺炎疫情并将其社会经济影响降至最低。该项目希望了解这些不对称现象，并帮助设计能够有效地重新启动经济并鼓励区域和部门一级的复苏和长期复兴的政策。为了实现这一目标，我计划使用嵌入在包括中间产品贸易在内的定量多部门经济空间框架中的流行病学模型来研究COVID-19的空间动态。我的研究重点是英国的地区，并结合其主要的国际贸易伙伴，如周边的欧洲国家，美国和中国。主要的假设是，各地点之间的经济联系是这种疾病的传播媒介，因此是其传播的另一个非常重要的因素。我想回答的具体问题包括：作为经济互动的结果，感染如何在时间和空间上传播？大流行病如何影响跨部门流动和跨区域的供应链联系？针对这一流行病的替代性对策会产生哪些社会经济影响？这种影响如何受到地区工业构成、供应链环节和英国退欧的影响？例如，该项目的调查结果可有助于在当前情况下通过地方企业伙伴关系网络在各行业之间更有效地分配地方增长基金。

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected different countries and regions differently both in the severity and the number of cases. Therefore, different regions within countries may require different policies to effectively address the Covid-19 epidemic and minimize its socio-economic impact. The project wants to understand these asymmetries and help the design of policies that can be effective in restarting the economy and encouraging recovery and long-run renewal at the regional and sectoral levels. To achieve this goal, I plan to study the spatial dynamics of COVID-19 employing an epidemiological model embedded in a quantitative multi-sector economic spatial framework that includes trade in intermediate products. My research focuses on the regions of the UK and incorporates their main international trade partners such as the surrounding European nations, the US and China. The main hypothesis is that economic links among locations work as vectors for the disease and are, therefore, another very important factor for its spread. Specific questions that I want to answer include the following: How does the infection spread over time and space as a result of economic interactions? How can the pandemic affect inter-sectoral flows and supply-chain links across regions? What can be the socio-economic impacts of alternative policy responses to the pandemic? How can this impact be affected by the industrial composition of regions, the supply-chain links and Brexit? The findings of the project can, for example, help allocate more efficiently the Local Growth Fund across industries by the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Network under the current circumstances.