Economy tracker: the impact of COVID19 in Europe
Authors: Michael Jacobs
Abstract: This Shiny application examines the evolution of key economic data for European countries, retrieved from the Eurostat API. It aims at visualising the economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic on unemployment, inflation and GDP.
Full Description: The dashboard focuses on three key economic indicators:
1. Unemployment rates, including both total unemployment rates, as well as data disaggregated by age and gender.
2. Inflation rates based on the Harmonised Index of Consumer prices, as well as the related expenditure weights.
3. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a widely used measure of output and economic activity.
Changes to these three main data series since the start of 2020 are monitored and contextualised with reference to past events (in particular in relation to the last major economic downturn, which began across Europe in 2008). While it remains too early to draw definitive conclusions about the overall impact of the COVID19 pandemic, some emerging trends are highlighted by the application:
• Unemployment has increased following the pandemic, but levels generally remain below the peak recorded during the last recession.
• The increase in unemployment since early 2020 is not uniform by demographic group, with rates for under 25-year-olds increasing more than for older workers. Taking EU27 countries as a whole, unemployment rates increased the most for under 25-year-old females.
• Household expenditure patterns have changed as lockdowns and restrictions on movement have meant the relative importance of spending on transport, restaurants, hotels and other recreation and cultural activities has declined.
• The drop in economic output that started in the first quarter of 2020 was more abrupt than the decline that began in 2008, but the bounce back has been quicker. Nonetheless, for now, output remains below the levels reported in 2019.
Keywords: economic data, visualization, dashboard, covid19, unemployment, gdp, inflation, europe
Shiny app: https://mjacobsdata.shinyapps.io/europe-economy-covid/
Repo: GitHub - michael-jacobs/europe-economy-covid: Shiny application to monitor the evolution of key economic data for European countries, retrieved from the Eurostat API. It aims at visualising the economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic on unemployment, inflation and GDP.
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