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  3. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
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  5. Economic Winners versus Losers and the Unequal Pandemic Recession

American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics

ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)

Economic Winners versus Losers and the Unequal Pandemic Recession

  • Fernando Cirelli
  • Mark Gertler
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics (Forthcoming)

Abstract

During the pandemic recession firms directly exposed to the virus, i.e. the “contact” sector, contracted sharply and recovered slowly relative to the rest of the economy. Less understood is how firms that “won” by offering safer substitutes for contact sector goods have affected this unequal downturn. Using both firm and industry data, we first construct disaggregated measures of revenue growth that distinguish between contact sector losers, contact sector winners, and the non-contact sector. We show that contact sector losers contracted roughly fifty percent more than the sector average, while winners grew. We then develop a model to explain the evidence.

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