Assessing the Economic Impact of Covid-19 through a Counterfactual Analysis

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruptions across industries worldwide. This paper aims to analyze the economic impact of the pandemic on the sales performance of basic commercial areas in Seoul, Korea. Using a regression analysis with credit card transaction data, the study underscores the critical nature of determining the reference point for comparison. Firstly, in comparison to the revenue in the same quarter before the onset of the pandemic, a significant decrease in revenue was observed across most categories during the pandemic periods. Secondly, when compared to the counterfactual revenue in the same period, extrapolated by an exponential smoothing forecasting, the overall revenue decrease during the periods was less pronounced, except in a few categories. Interestingly, certain categories appeared to witness marginal increases in sales after the pandemic. The paper discusses some policy implications of these findings.