Gabriel Lyrio de Oliveira (p), Leonardo Portes Merlini

Olga Demidova

We present the first quasi-experimental assessment of Auxílio Emergencial, the Brazilian emergency economic plan designed to cope with Covid-19 and its threats on subsistence of vulnerable families, and focus on impacts on Schooling, Labor Market and Entrepreneurship outcomes. For that purpose, we explore a discontinuity in the family composition eligibility criteria as our Identification Strategy. It caused higher benefits for our treatment group in comparison to the amount received by the control group. We conducted our analysis with the sample of young adults from families already registered, before pandemic outbreak, in the National registry of vulnerable families (Cadastro Único). Then, we merged this identified data from 2019 and 2021 with the payment records of Auxílio Emergencial during 2020 and the identified data from firms and micro-entrepreneurs (MEI and CNPJ) from Receita Federal do Brasil - RFB. The program size was unprecedented in the country history, covering more than 32.9% of the population (68 million people) and having a budget in 2020 of BRL 338 billion, 13.5% of the country GDP. Our main results indicate that individuals from families benefited by the extra amount graduated faster in the basic education, consistent with the observed decrease in labor market participation. We also find heterogeneous effects on labor income, especially for urban residents, and a reduction in the opening of micro-entrepreneurship firms.

Daniela Antonescu (p), Ioana Cristina Florescu

Gabriel Lyrio De Oliveira

Analyses of regional inequalities follow to examination the differences in abstract and general characteristics that regional economies share. Most attention is paid to their relative income and to the way in which they change over the course of time: if inequalities get smaller, convergence or catch-up occurs, and if they get wider, divergence is said to occur. This entry outlines the steps involved in examining regional inequalities and their evolution in time of COVID-9 pandemic crisis, starting with the definition of suitable territorial entities, the identification of indicators of income and the definition of ways of measuring inequality. The methods are used to outline the degree of regional inequality in Romania and the evolution of disparities in the period 2019-2022. The empirical evidence indicates that regional economies can diverge or converge depending on the relative weight of equalizing and unequalising forces. Although attention is concentrated on the geography of the creation of income, it is important to note that this geography is modified by a range of redistribution mechanisms.

Francisco-Jesús Ferreiro-Seoane, Adrián Ríos-Blanco (p), Ana Cid-Bouzo

Daniela Antonescu

The most attractive organizations to work for are of special interest because they cause a major impact on the labor market and society. The aim of this article is to analyze the best companies in the labor market in Spain that remain every year in the ranking published by the Revista de Actualidad Económica, during 2013-2020 period.

The labor excellence of these companies is investigated taking in account the beginning of COVID-19 crisis, in addition to characterizing them with critical indicators like the gender of the management, European Union belonging, the location of its headquarters according to Autonomous Community, size, stock market price and whether they belong to the IBEX35.

A quantitative analysis by means of descriptive and inference methods allows us to conclude that excellent companies led by women stand out in Work Environment and CSR. Organizations outside the European Union achieve higher values. On the other hand, location of its headquarters does not influence valuation. The size does result in a total positive assessment, but the same doesn’t apply if the company is listed on the stock market. Finally, it is observed that, faced with the challenge of COVID-19, these companies manage to maintain consistent labor excellence in environments where Talent, Compensation, Environment, Training and Total Valuation stand out. Therefore, valuable results are provided for the formulation of human resources policies.

Olga Demidova (p),Valentin Voytenkov

Adrián Ríos-Blanco

In the face of heightened economic uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic agents are reshaping their consumption patterns. The objective of this study is to assess changes in the determinants of consumption patterns in Russian regions under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic testing several hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1. The distribution of consumption patterns and average values will vary during the pre-crisis, post-crisis, and pandemic crisis periods.
Hypothesis 2. The rigidity of pandemic restrictions has a significant impact on changes in consumption patterns in Russian regions.
Hypothesis 3. The effect of factors determining consumption patterns has changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We use data from the quarterly survey of households conducted by Rosstat. The number of interviewed households varies from 48000 to 49200 households during 2016-2021 years. The composition of the interviewed households can vary slightly from year to year, while within one year the number of households is constant.
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov and t-test were used to test the equality of distributions and means correspondingly. The results of these tests confirm our first hypothesis. The results show that the average value of the share of alcohol consumption does not change in 2020, compared to 2019, while for the other variables the mean values and distributions are not equal. Average spending on food at home increased in 2020 compared to 2019, and spending on food outside the home and services dropped significantly, while expenditures in the other categories have slightly changed. In 2021, the share of out-of-home food expenditures increased slightly from 2020, as did the share of spending on services, with a corresponding decrease in the share of spending on food at home.
To test our second and third hypotheses, we estimated several linear regression models with robust standard errors. According the obtained results, during the pandemic crisis a quantitative change in consumption patterns occurred: households increased spending on food at home, and considerably decreased expenditures on food outside the home, which supports hypothesis 1. We observe a significant effect of the rigidity of quarantine restrictions on expenditure categories, which is consistent with hypothesis 2. The results show that despite the redistribution of shares between expenditure categories, household behavior patterns remain qualitatively unchanged during crises, which only partially confirms hypothesis 3.