The economic impact of different strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic : A comparison of economic growth between the zero and non-zero strategy among the OECD member countries

Sammanfattning: The global pandemic Covid-19 caused an inevitable impact on economic growth and public health. Policymakers were forced to opt for the zero or the non-zero strategy to ease the economic effects and stop the spreading of infection. Previous literature on the matter strikingly agreed that the zero strategy was optimal. This paper’s primary purpose is to analyse the impact of zero and non-zero strategies on economic growth by comparing the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The empirical methodology utilised in this paper constitutes the traditional Difference in Difference (DiD) design in a two-way fixed effects framework. The dataset contained 38 OECD member countries during the period 2015 to 2021. The countries were assigned to a treatment group and a control group based on the chosen strategy. The main results contradict previous literature and presented a significant and negative relationship between the zero strategy and gross domestic product per capita growth. In the case of future global pandemics, these findings can facilitate the choice of action aiming to mitigate the economic effects.