Effect of pandemic on macroeconomic data of countries: Example of inflation and unemployment

The Covid-19 virus, which first appeared in China in December 2019 and affected all the countries of the world, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The coronavirus pandemic has caused a large number of deaths worldwide. Various measures have been taken since the first day to reduce the transmission rate of the virus. Although the measures taken differ from country to country, the ultimate goal in terms of health is to reduce the rate of spread of the virus by reducing the interaction of people with each other. In this study, the countries most affected by the pandemic period (according to the number of cases) are discussed. These countries are the United States, India, Brazil, Russia, England, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey and Germany. Inflation and unemployment data of the countries covered in the study are examined. The macroeconomic data of the countries are divided into two as the pre-pandemic period and the pandemic period, and it is questioned whether there is a significant difference between the two periods. The normal distribution of the collected data was analyzed with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, then the dependent (paired) sample t-test was used as a statistical method. After the significance values were found, the (d) calculation developed by Cohen was used to find the effect size. The relationship between the two periods is analyzed using the SPSS v.26 program. In the results obtained, the pandemic had a significant effect on inflation in four out of ten countries, and the unemployment rates of nine out of ten countries were significantly affected by the pandemic period.