Title: Economic policy of COVID-19: an emerging country perspective

Authors: Erekle Pirveli; Teona Shugliashvili; Nino Machavariani

Addresses: Caucasus School of Business, Caucasus University, Paata Saakadze Str. 1, Tbilisi 0102, Georgia ' Munich Graduate School of Economics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany ' Caucasus School of Economics, Caucasus University, Paata Saakadze Str. 1, Tbilisi 0102, Georgia

Abstract: This work aims to establish a sectoral priority ranking for the emerging economy of Georgia. Based on 1,886 small, medium and large private entities from the eight largest sectors of the economy, we build a novel Sectoral Performance Index (SPI), detecting sectors' existing as well as potential contributory roles measured by GDP production, employment, intersectoral trade and firm-level efficiency (size, income levels and profitability). Findings reveal that the manufacturing industry, due to its deepest inter-sectoral networks in the input-output matrix, performs best and thus may serve well as an economic backbone of the country. The results are inconsistent with Georgia's current economic agenda with the focus on tourism industry. The latter, due to its high crisis-vulnerability and low performance, neither is suggestible as a top priority sector throughout the hard-times of COVID-19, nor is recommended in other times of economic development.

Keywords: economic policy; Georgia; COVID-19; sectoral performance index; growth; SPI; development; sectoral analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEPEE.2022.121348

International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies, 2022 Vol.15 No.2/3/4, pp.214 - 250

Received: 29 May 2020
Accepted: 04 Aug 2020
Published online: 07 Mar 2022 *

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