The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have adverse effects on the economy through damage to migration and remittances. We use a unique monthly household panel dataset that covers the period both before and after the outbreak to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on a variety of household welfare outcomes in Tajikistan, where remittance inflows in recent years have exceeded a quarter of annual GDP. We provide several findings. First, after April 2020, the adverse effects of the pandemic on household welfare were significantly observed and were particularly pronounced in the second quarter of 2020. Second, in contrast to expectation, the pandemic had a sharp but only transitory effect on the stock of migrants working abroad in the spring. Some expected migrants were forced to remain in their home country during the border closures, while some incumbent migrants expecting to return were unable to do so and remained employed in their destination countries. Both departures and returns started to increase again from summer. Employment and remittances of the migrants quickly recovered to levels seen in previous years after a sharp decline in April and May. Third, regression analyses reveal that both migration and remittances have helped to mitigate the adverse economic outcomes at home during the "with-COVID-19" period, suggesting that they served as a form of insurance. Overall, the unfavorable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were severe and temporary right after the outbreak, but households with migrants were more resilient against the pandemic.

中文翻译：

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抵御大流行病的能力：COVID-19 对塔吉克斯坦移民和家庭福利的影响。


COVID-19 大流行可能会对移民和汇款造成损害，从而对经济产生不利影响。我们使用涵盖疫情爆发前后时期的独特月度家庭面板数据集来研究 COVID-19 对塔吉克斯坦各种家庭福利结果的影响，该国近年来的汇款流入已超过年度 GDP 的四分之一。我们提供了一些发现。首先，2020年4月以后，疫情对家庭福利的不利影响明显，2020年第二季度尤为明显。其次，与预期相反，疫情对流动人口存量的影响虽然剧烈，但只是暂时的。春天出国打工。在边境关闭期间，一些预期的移民被迫留在自己的祖国，而一些希望返回的现有移民却无法返回，仍留在目的地国就业。从夏季开始，出发和回程都再次开始增加。移民的就业和汇款在四月和五月大幅下降后迅速恢复到往年水平。第三，回归分析显示，移民和汇款都有助于减轻“COVID-19”期间国内不利的经济后果，这表明它们充当了一种保险形式。总体而言，COVID-19 大流行的不利影响在疫情爆发后是严重且暂时的，但有移民的家庭对大流行的抵御能力更强。