HEIRS 
High-frequency Economic Indicators and Resilience of Society

The Project

This project will demonstrate how high-frequency (daily) electricity consumption data can be used to estimate the causal, short-run impact of exogenous shocks, such as COVID-19 on the economy. In the current uncertain economic conditions, timeliness is essential for effective policy making. Unlike official statistics, our approach can monitor virtually in real-time the level of economic activities, the impact of the containment policies and the extent of the recession. We will also be able to measure whether the monetary and fiscal stimuli introduced are effective in addressing the crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused more than 8 million confirmed cases and 500,000 death to date. Since vaccines for the virus are currently nonexistent, many countries have tried to curb the spread of the infection by introduced a series of social-distancing measures including lockdowns and businesses’ temporary shutdowns. Therefore, the pandemic has been generating unprecedent disruption on every aspect of the economy and the society. The overarching goal of this interdisciplinary research project is providing novel methodologies and tools based on high-frequency, big-data information for supporting informed policy making and improving socio-economic resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This project capitalizes upon recent works by the team members and by the interdisciplinary research of VERA on:

• Estimating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic activities using high-frequency electricity market data;
• Developing innovative methodologies for the study of economic contagion effects, high-frequency interactions and structural breaks.

Events

1st intermediate workshop - 18 January 2022

171 K

People

Principal Investigator

Francesco Ravazzolo, Full Professor of Econometrics, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Bozen

Associated Investigators

Roberto Casarin, Full Professor of Econometrics, Department of Economics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Davide Ferrari, Full Professor of Statistics and Data Science, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Bozen

Carlo Fezzi, Associate Professor of Econometrics, Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento

Publications

• Galdi G., Casarin R., Ferrari D., Fezzi C., Ravazzolo R., 2022, Nowcasting industrial production using linear and non-linear models of electricity demand
• Ahelegbey D. F., Casarin R., Fianu E. S., Grossi L., 2021, Structural Changes in Contagion Channels: the Impact of COVID-19 on the Italian Electricity Market