Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi joined Mayor Ethan Berkowitz at the Anchorage daily COVID-19 community update on Wednesday, May 6. He discussed the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Anchorage economy and the prospects for economic recovery. A video of the briefing is available from the Anchorage Daily News website. Dr. Guettabi’s presentation begins at about 16:42 and lasts about 12 minutes. His presentation can be found in ISER's publications database.
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Two UAA staff recently presented information to the Alaska Legislature about the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on the Alaska economy. Mouhcine Guettabi (ISER) and Nolan Klouda (UAA’s Business Enterprise Institute) made presentations to the House Labor and Commerce Committee on April 24, 2020. Video and audio from that hearing can be found online.
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The coronavirus crisis has dramatically affected economic and social behavior in Alaska. Getting immediate measures of the impact on economic activity is limited by the inherent lags built into the collection of data on economic variables such as employment and sales. Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi turned to some near-real-time electronic data to get a more immediate sense of how activity has been impacted.
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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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In a presentation on the outlook for Alaska's economy in 2022, Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi provided an employment-centric forecast of the likely path the economy will take, given available information. He outlined both pandemic and pre-pandemic factors that have impacted the state, discussed whether Alaska's situation is unique from the rest of the U.S., and offered his thoughts on its continued recovery. Guettabi's formal written analysis will be available on ISER's website in the near future.
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In 2019, the Alaska economy emerged from a 3-year recession after losing more than 11,000 jobs between 2015 and 2018. The recovery has, however, been modest as employment averaged 0.4% or 1,400 more jobs between January and November 2019 relative to the same period last year. Oil & Gas and Construction have led this growth as they averaged 510 and 720 more jobs, respectively. It is also important to note that the recovery has been uneven. While we only have borough level data until the month of June, figure 1 shows that a considerable number of boroughs/census areas were still losing jobs as of June 2019.
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In this brief, we summarize the state’s unrestricted general fund revenues, agency operations spending, and capital budget spending between fiscal years 1975 and 2021. The severe decline in oil prices in 2015 resulted in a significant revenue decline which has then resulted in spending reductions at both the agency operation level and the capital budget. For fiscal year 2021, capital spending per person will be the third lowest since 1975 and Agency Operations will be the sixth lowest in real dollars.
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Alaska's economy is in recovery mode, but how much optimism is warranted this year? Join ISER on January 26 from 12-1 pm for an online presentation with insights from economist Mouhcine Guettabi. He will give an overview of how the economy has changed since the onset of the pandemic and a look at the opportunities and challenges for Alaska in 2022.
About Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi