Effects of COVID-19 prevention and mitigation measures on confidence indexes in OECD countries

Analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic uncertainty is essential Especially when one considers that measures of economic uncertainty can provide forward-looking information about economic activity in real time For this purpose, the Consumer Confidence Index and the Business Confidence Index are used as dependent variables On the other hand, to analyze the consequences of the pandemic, the number of deaths confirmed by COVID-19 is used as an independent variable Similarly, the index of economic support and the index of government response were used to assess measures of containment and mitigation of the pandemic Two samples of different composition were considered, one for each confidence index Both samples are composed of 28 OECD member or partner countries The Generalized Method of Moments with two-way fixed effects was used to perform the statistical analysis The results show that there is a positive relationship between economic uncertainty and the number of deaths confirmed by COVID-19 On the other hand, a negative relationship was detected between the government response rate and economic uncertainty © 2020 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico All rights reserved