COVID-19's Impact on China's Economy: A Prediction Model Based on Railway Transportation Statistics

Wang, Yunhao, Zhiqiang Fang, and Wei Gao. "COVID‐19's impact on China's economy: a prediction model based on railway transportation statistics." Disasters (2021).

14 Pages Posted: 17 Mar 2020 Last revised: 7 Sep 2021

See all articles by Yunhao Wang

Yunhao Wang

Northeast Normal University - KLASMOE & School of Mathematics and Statistics

Zhiqiang Fang

University of Melbourne

Wei Gao

Northeast Normal University

Date Written: March 15, 2020

Abstract

The outbreak of Covid-19 in China during the Spring Festival of 2020 has changed life as we knew it. To explore its impact on China's economy, we analyse the daily railway passenger volume data during the Spring Festival travel rush and establish two RegARMA models to predict GDP in the first quarter. The models forecast China might lose 4.8 trillion yuan in the first quarter of 2020 due to Covid-19, an expected decrease of 20.69 percent (year-on-year drop 15.60 percent). However, comparing our forecast GDP without Covid-19 (23.2 trillion yuan) with the real GDP (20.65 trillion yuan), there is a smaller drop of 2.55 trillion yuan, a gap of 12.35 percent. The reason for this overestimation is that some positive factors, including macro-control policies, are neglected in these models. With the global spread of Covid-19, China should adopt a policy of focusing on balancing both domestic and external affairs against the instability of the world economy.

Keywords: China’s GDP prediction; Covid-19; RegARMA model; Spring Festival travel rush; transportation data

JEL Classification: C0, C1, C5, I1

Suggested Citation

Wang, Yunhao and Fang, Zhiqiang and Gao, Wei, COVID-19's Impact on China's Economy: A Prediction Model Based on Railway Transportation Statistics (March 15, 2020). Wang, Yunhao, Zhiqiang Fang, and Wei Gao. "COVID‐19's impact on China's economy: a prediction model based on railway transportation statistics." Disasters (2021)., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3554638 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3554638

Yunhao Wang (Contact Author)

Northeast Normal University - KLASMOE & School of Mathematics and Statistics ( email )

Changchun
China

Zhiqiang Fang

University of Melbourne ( email )

185 Pelham Street
Carlton, Victoria 3053
Australia

Wei Gao

Northeast Normal University ( email )

Changchun
China

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