THE IMPACT OF THE COVID CRISIS ON MACROECONOMIC INDICATORS OF EU MEMBER STATES

Abstract

The macroeconomic indicators for the 27 EU member states in the period from 2015 to 2021 were analyzed. The following macroeconomic indicators were selected: GDP growth, inflation, unemployment rate and public debt. (IMF, 2022). Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and cluster analysis were applied to the mentioned data set. The period before and during the COVID crisis was analyzed separately, in order to examine the statistically significant impact on macroeconomic variables. GDP fell in 2020 compared to the previous period in all observed countries except Ireland. Inflation recorded the highest growth in 2021, while unemployment increased slightly compared to the period before the COVID pandemic. Public debt has a tendency to increase in 2020 and 2021. Based on these results, the time interval is divided into two subperiods: the period before the COVID pandemic from 2015 to 2018 and the period after the outbreak of the pandemic 2020 to 2021. Due to the discontinuity caused by the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, 2019, in which macroeconomic indicators have a similar tendency as in the years preceding it, was left out of the analysis. Based on the average values for the two subperiods, the paired t-tests show a significant statistical difference in all observed variables. Based on the values of the variables, EU members can be divided into four groups of countries. As Greece showed the worst results among the observed countries, both before and after the outbreak of the pandemic, it is alone in one of the four identified clusters. At a higher level of hierarchical grouping, countries can be divided into two groups.