Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi and Jon Bittner join host Lori Townsend on a recent episode of Alaska Public Media's Talk of Alaska to discuss the effects of COVID-19 on Alaska's economy. The recording and transcript are available from their website.
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Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi has completed an initial estimate of the possible impact of the COVID-19 business closures on the Alaska economy. To develop those estimates, he focused upon the impacts on the three most directly affected industries: leisure and hospitality, retail, and transportation. He estimated that the direct and indirect effects from reduced activity in those three sectors would be about 48,000 jobs and would reduce state GDP by almost $2 billion in the second quarter of 2020, If the closures are sustained, an additional $2 billion could be lost. Professor Guettabi's estimates may not capture the impacts of many smaller losses spread throughout the economy and do not include possible impacts on the economy from the recent collapse of oil prices. They also do not include the possible offsetting impact of federal COVID-19 aid to Alaska.
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Faculty members Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi and Dr. Kevin Berry answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic in the latest releases of Ask a UAA Expert. Dr. Guettabi answers questions related to the State economic consequences while Dr. Berry addresses pandemic economics. Check out the videos!
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The Institute of Social and Economic Research’s (ISER) Dr. Kevin Berry recently co-wrote an article with Dr. Katherine Lee (University of Idaho) published in The Hill. The piece, Why a go-it-alone approach to combatting the coronavirus won't work, addresses the current coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) and why we need coordinated international efforts in order to minimize the overall effects.
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The Institute of Social and Economic Research’s Professor Kevin Berry recently discussed the coronavirus with both Alaska Public Media and KTUU. He says the oil, fishing, tourism and cargo industries may be especially susceptible to the effects of the outbreak.
“These things will probably slow down the economy because, within China, people are being told to stay inside, not move around,” Berry commented. “So we can expect the economy as a whole to slow down because of this. There’s going to be an impact on things like oil.”