Xinyi Zhang

With the global spread of the Coronavirus epidemic, search engine data can be a practical tool for decision-makers to understand the epidemic's trends. This article uses trend analysis data from the Baidu search engine, the most widely used in China, to analyze the public's attention to the epidemic and the demand for N95 masks and other anti-epidemic materials and information. This kind of analysis has become an important part of information epidemiology. We have analyzed the use of the keywords “Coronavirus epidemic,” “N95 mask,” and “Wuhan epidemic” to judge whether the introduction of real-time search data has improved the efficiency of the Coronavirus epidemic prediction model. In general, the introduction of the Baidu index, whether in-sample or out-of-sample, significantly improves the prediction efficiency of the model.

In this paper, we test the validity of the employment hysteresis hypothesis. For this purpose, we use daily employment data at the national and state levels in the United States from January 8, 2020, to May 30, 2020. We apply the modified version of the Kapetanios-Shin unit root test, along with finite-sample critical values. We find that the employment hysteresis hypothesis is valid in the United States during the COVID-19 era. The validity of the findings does not change when data at the national and state levels are used. The evidence is also valid when the employment levels for all firms and small firms are considered. The results are also robust to employment levels for workers at different income levels and employment in five different sectors.

The reform of China’s tax-sharing system in 1994 has not only had a profound heterogeneous impact on the control level of fiscal resources by local government but also might exert a negative effect on the sustainable development of tourism. Based on this hypothesis, this paper uses 1993–2018 data from 31 Chinese provinces to examine the dynamic relationship between China’s fiscal decentralization, income gap, urbanization, and tourism growth using a panel co-integration model. Our results show that there is a stable co-integration relationship between fiscal decentralization, income gap, and tourism growth. In general, the impact of fiscal decentralization and income gap on tourism development varies across regions. However, in most provinces, urbanization helps the development of tourism. Urbanization and fiscal decentralization also help reduce the income gap. This shows that the inter-regional government competition promotes not only the growth of tourism but also income equality. To achieve the sustainable development of tourism, China should not only take the advantage of local governments’ incentives for economic growth but also handle the income gap problem considering local conditions.