Infectious disease, human capital, and the BRICS economy in the time of COVID-19

Devi Prasad Dash; Narayan Sethi; Aruna Kumar Dash

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2020.101202

Infectious disease, human capital, and the BRICS economy in the time of COVID-19

MethodsX. 2021:8:101202. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2020.101202. Epub 2020 Dec 25.

Authors

Devi Prasad Dash¹, Narayan Sethi², Aruna Kumar Dash³

Affiliations

¹ Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India.
² Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha, India.
³ Associate Professor Economics, IBS Hyderabad, The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

Abstract

We develop empirical models using difference-in-difference method to find out how COVID-19 testing and infection rates impact the BRICS economy. Our results show that strict government measures, areas of poor people and people with heart diseases have resulted in high COVID-19 testing due to the increasing infections, However, economic development and population density are not found to be rather insignificant towards the COVID-19 testing rates. Hence, both from policy and pandemic perspectives, it is inferred that these developing economies need to divert more resources and infuse more investment in the healthcare sector in the coming days.•Governments must give due stress to the health sector along with development irrespective of nature of the economy.•Our results show that strict government measures, areas of poor people and people with heart diseases have resulted in high COVID-19 testing due to the increasing infections.•Both from policy and pandemic perspectives, it is inferred that these BRICS economies need to divert more resources and infuse more investment in the healthcare sector.

Keywords: BRICS; COVID-19; Infectious Disease; Population; Poverty.