Poverty Consequences of COVID-19 Epidemic-Induced Lockdowns in Senegal: Extent and Implications from a Household Survey
Date
2020-11-29
Authors
Seck, Abdoulaye
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research consortium
Abstract
This paper aims to assess the short-run distributional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
in Senegal by specifically looking at income losses, poverty and inequality impacts,
and how the Government would go about offsetting them. Using a detailed household
expenditure survey and two approaches that make various assumptions regarding
the riskiness of income sources and types, the share of households losing income
and the extent of those losses, the paper suggests that the welfare consequences are
indeed very large. An increased share of households losing more and more income
would lead to an estimated income loss of up US$ 263.3 million per month or 12.6% of
monthly GDP, poverty rate reaching 72.3%, and a worsening in inequality. With survey
evidence of the extent of losses across industries and income types, the paper shows
that losses tend to emanate from rural areas as opposed to Dakar and other cities,
and from industries such as transport/travel, financial intermediation and housing
services (per capita losses), agriculture and personal services (absolute losses). The
paper also provides an estimate of the monthly budget (US$ 246.6 million, or 11.8%
of monthly GDP) in the form of adult-equivalent uniform transfer that would fully
offset the poverty impact, conditional on a targeted mechanism that espouses the
distributional impact across geographical locations.
Description
Keywords
COVID-19 , Poverty , Inequality , , Fiscal policy