Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic development of EU countries

Abstract

One of the essential consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is a slowdown in economic development, which is reflected in an integrated way by the Gross Domestic Product per inhabitant of the country. However, its dimensions are not the same for individual countries of the European Union, so it is crucial to determine what circumstances led to this phenomenon. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine individual EU countries’ losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the circumstances they depended on. Correlation-regression analysis was used, which made it possible to calculate what effect the countries’ economic development level and the intensity of its positive changes on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic had on the losses incurred. In 2018, it was found that this relationship is very strong (the value of the correlation coefficient r equals 0.8 and 0.7, respectively). The study’s results highlighted the regularity – economic development slowed down the least in those countries where it was in the best condition, and the positive development changes were the most intense. It was found that in the ten most developed EU countries, economic growth slowed down because of the COVID-19 pandemic by approximately 2.3%, and in the rest of the countries – 5.1%. According to the slow-down of economic development, insensitiveness was approximately 3.45 and 5.46%.