Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2020.1862688
The impact of Covid-19 on Gig economy
Muhammad Umar
Yan Xu
Sultan Sikandar Mirza
Abstract
Covid-19 has jolted and halted the whole world. Economies and
stock markets have been hit hard however very little is known
about the impact of the pandemic on Gig economy. So, this study
is an attempt to understand the impact of Covid-19 on Gig economy. The Online Labor Index of Oxford University has been used
as a measure of Gig Economy and daily record of new cases and
deaths of Corona patients has been used as proxies for Covid-19.
The world data for Gig economy ranges from July 1, 2019 to June
22, 2020 and the data regarding Covid-19 ranges from December
31, 2019 to June 22, 2020. This study uses GARCH and VAR model
to understand the above mentioned relationship. The results of
volatility clustering shows that the volatility of Gig economy
increased with the news of Covid-19. Findings of VAR show that
covid-19 has significant positive impact on new job openings in
Gig economy. Granger causality test shows a bi-directional relationship between covid-19 and Gig economy i.e. Covid-19 cases
affected online job openings and online job filling affected the
spread of pandemic. The Findings suggest that policymakers
should make policies to support Gig economy because it has the
potential to keep the world going even in the toughest of times.
Keywords
Covid-19; Corona virus; Gig economy; Online Labor Index; online jobs; platform economy; sharing economy
Hrčak ID:
301357
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2021.
Visits: 1.973 *