The Effect of Coronavirus Outbreaks on the Future of Economic Growth and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

The economic growth of any country may change due to external shocks. Disruption of the economy caused by events can change the rate of growth and GDP of countries. In the last decade, among the existing shocks, the shock caused by infectious diseases, including COVID-19, which has affected the world economy can be mentioned. In this study, the effect of infectious diseases on greenhouse gas emissions in middle- and low-income countries in the period 2000-2019 was investigated and for this purpose, the relationship between economic growth and Kuznets environmental model for this group of countries was considered. While examining the Kuznets environmental hypothesis using direct and indirect elasticities, the effect of infectious disease on economic growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions was calculated. The results showed that in countries located in Asia, Africa, as well as North and South America, which are often more populous with lower national incomes and lower in terms of development, the outbreaks of infectious diseases have less effect on CO2 emissions. The greatest effect of the infectious diseases on reducing greenhouse gas emissions with elasticities of 0.044 and 0.033 are related to Ukraine and Botswana, respectively. In each outbreak of infectious diseases in the world, the environment has improved and it is expected that until a cure for the new coronavirus is found, global CO2 emissions, especially in countries in lower and middle- income group in 2020, will decrease.