The potential local and regional impacts of COVID-19 in New Zealand with a focus on tourism - NZIER Public Discussion Paper 2020/3

This working paper was prepared at NZIER by Christina Leung, Laëtitia Leroy de Morel, Glyn Wittwer (CoPS) and Dion Gämperle. It was presented at the 23rd Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis organised by GTAP (17–19 June 2020).

We use our CGE model to assess the potential impacts of COVID-19 on the New Zealand economy and its regions. Our regional CGE model is used to run three scenarios (phases) based on the different alert levels (1-4) imposed by the New Zealand Government.

For each phase, we mostly focus on restrictions applied to the entry and movements of people as well as on labour and capital temporarily rendered idle due to the isolation and social distancing measures. We do not explicitly model any fiscal response to showcase the base against which fiscal policies can be assessed.