Impact of COVID-19: Global Economic Effects and Economic Learning

This report examines the significant global economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies the key challenges, such as increased unemployment and substantial losses across various industries due to lockdowns, leading to company bankruptcies and a decline in GDP for major economies. The report also discusses the varying responses of different countries, with some managing the crisis better than others. Furthermore, it includes a reflective log that highlights the learning journey in economics, emphasizing the importance of economic principles in addressing such crises, resource allocation, and decision-making. The conclusion summarizes the pandemic's impact and the insights gained from economic learning.

Economic environment

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
1. Identifying and examination of the crucial global economic effects of the situation of
COVID-19 on the economy of the country.................................................................................1
2. Elaborating the reflective log that is based on the learning journey of economics and its
relation with the stream...............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Economic environment is one of the most important as well as crucial aspect as it helps in
analysing and evaluating all the aspects that are related with the environment prospects that are
of economic nature so that appropriate measures can be taken for the improvement of the
economy that will prove beneficial in the long run (Aslan, Destek and Okumus, 2018). In this
report there is a brief discussion of the important global effects on the economy because of the
COVID-19 scenario that is prevailing in the present time. Apart from this the report also covers a
reflective log that is described in an elaborated manner with the reference to the journey of
learning and economics.
MAIN BODY
1. Identifying and examination of the crucial global economic effects of the situation of COVID-
19 on the economy of the country
The pandemic that affected the whole world which was COVID-19 hit each and every
sector of the industry very hard and every country faced the challenge to overcome this, while
some has done a good job in reducing the impacts of COVID-19 but the rest looked like puppets
and have not done any serious effort to overcome this challenge in an effective and efficient
manner. The major two challenges that it poised for the economy of every country are described
below in detail in an elaborated way-
 Unemployment and losses- It is one of the main effects of the pandemic, since because
of it all the countries faced lockdowns of different intervals on different time period and
thus it resulted in closure of the whole industry which further resulted in no profitability
and even a lot of firms generated hefty losses. As the market remained closed for almost
an average of three months or so it caused bad debts for the companies and it created a
vicious cycle which impacted the overall performance of all the organisation irrespective
of the market in which they are operational. Since all the enterprises incurred losses due
to the prevailing circumstance thus it forced many of them to cut the employee staffs that
are working for them resulting in the high rate of unemployment since it was measured in
numerical terms. Since companies cut down individuals it also makes them bankrupt and
most of the firms became insolvent in that period and it was even much worse than that
of the 2008 financial crises that damaged and disrupted the whole working management.

As whole world came to its feet and unemployment added to it and thus make the
situation even worse to tackle and thus the year that is regarded as the year of pandemic
which is 2020 has seen the most number of job cuts in every country as compared to any
other year and the United States of America was one of the country that was worst hit by
the pandemic as the cases and deaths was too high in addition to the maximum job cuts
that was around 20.6 million which was the maximum number of people losing jobs as
compared to any other nation (Bathelt and Glückler, 2018).
 Fall of major economies- As the pandemic that was COVID-19 was first seen in China
in December 2019 but at that time it was not seen as a cause of worry but the economy of
China contracted with a great margin but it has done commendably well to control the
virus spread by using effective measures and ruthless containment but till then it was too
late as it gradually spread all across the world causing enormous impact on the economy
of the country as well as its citizens. United States of America which was considered one
of the superpowers in the world including Russia and United Kingdom faced the heat of
the pandemic and was the most affected nations in the whole world. While India was on
the top of the list as the fall in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was maximum that
was around 23.9 percent followed by the United Kingdom’s which was pegged at a
contraction of around 21.7 percent followed by France, Italy, Canada, Germany, Japan,
and United Stated of America as the economies of the above countries fallen by a great
margin of 18.9, 17.7, 13, 11.3, 9.9, and 9.1 percent respectively (Mirza and Kanwal,
2017). But China from which the COVID-19 originated managed to grow even in these
tough situations as the total economy of the country rose by around 3.2 percent on an
average and thus posing as a role model for different countries that have not managed to
do that well as compared with it. Apart from this the lockdown timing of every nation
was almost more or the less similar making it more difficult for the economy to survive
and the insolvency of the major companies that contributed majorly in the economy
added to the crisis and thus it was the last nail on the coffin. Since major organisations
filed for bankruptcy even more then the companied filed for insolvency during the time
of recession in the year 2008 making it a worst situation for every country since major
objective of all the nations is to protect life and controlling the spread of the virus so that
it can be reduced and after then recovery of the economy can be done in an impactful

manner. All the major economies though to achieve a V-shaped recovery but only a few
of them has managed to get it done in an accurate and precise manner as it is a very
difficult task to accomplish but still they are trying the level best that can be done to
control the virus and the recovery of the economy but still many more steps have to be
taken in this regard so that whole world can overcome these hardships and tough times in
a short time period (Benjamin, 2018).
2. Elaborating the reflective log that is based on the learning journey of economics and its
relation with the stream
Learning is a very important aspect in every field as it helps to sustain the dynamic
environment as well as gives a chance to grow, develop, and prosper as an individual too and as I
analysed and evaluated the COVID-19 situation and its possible impact on the economy of a
country and it helped me a lot in gaining knowledge about different factors that possess a lot of
value in the current and in future too (Tomić, 2016). Economic learning helped me a lot as it
proves very beneficial in identifying the problems and issues that a nation is facing so that
appropriate rectification measure could be taken that can help in the growth of the economy and
that too within a limited time frame with full effectiveness and efficiency. COVID-19 situation
impacted the overall working of the country and also reduced the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
to an all time low and also affected the living and lifestyle of all the people around the world.
Economic learning prove useful at this time as with the help of it proper allocation and allotment
of the available resources can be done which can be crucial in such circumstances like that of the
pandemic which the whole world is facing currently. Also standard of living came to a low
which no one expected and thus damaging the economy very badly which will therefore take
years to recover and learning of economics helped me to understand the actual and true
positioning of the industries that constitute a main part of the economy. With reference to the
degree that I am pursuing which is in economics I have learnt a lot of different things mainly the
decision making ability that must be taken in an accurate and precise manner so that plans can
formulated and implemented in an impactful way which can add to the value of the economy in
the long term context (Ding and Peng, 2018).

CONCLUSION
Economic environment is a very critical aspect as it is related with the economic factors that
are related with environmental context and thus it has the ability to make a country develop
much more than its current status if it is analysed, evaluated, and implemented in an appropriate
and precise manner. From the above it can be concluded that the pandemic COVID-19 has
affected and impacted the whole world but some countries has done a commendable efforts to
keep its damages up to a certain scale while others did not handle it properly and thus as a result
has already paid a hefty price for it and some are still paying for it. Apart from that it can be
concluded that a lot of damage has been done by COVID-19 but the rise of unemployment and
decrease in the economy is the major challenges that almost each and every country faced at
some point of time. Further it can be concluded that I learned a lot of new things in my learning
journey of economics.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Aslan, A., Destek, M. A. and Okumus, I., 2018. Bootstrap rolling window estimation approach to
analysis of the Environment Kuznets Curve hypothesis: evidence from the USA.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 25(3). pp.2402-2408.
Bathelt, H. and Glückler, J., 2018. Relational research design in economic geography. The New
Oxford handbook of economic geography. pp.179-196.
Benjamin, B., 2018. Social and economic factors affecting mortality (Vol. 5). Walter de Gruyter
GmbH & Co KG.
Ding, Y. and Peng, J., 2018. Impacts of urbanization of mountainous areas on resources and
environment: Based on ecological footprint model. Sustainability. 10(3). p.765.
Mirza, F. M. and Kanwal, A., 2017. Energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic
growth in Pakistan: Dynamic causality analysis. Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Reviews. 72. pp.1233-1240.
Tomić, D., 2016. A more complex approach to the terms of trade dynamics; the case of Croatia.
The EU economic environment post-crisis: Policies, institutions and mechanisms.
pp.95-108.