TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Schotte, Simone
AU  - Danquah, Michael
AU  - Osei, Robert
AU  - Sen, Kunal
        TI  - The Labour Market Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns: Evidence from Ghana
        PY  - 2021/Aug/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 14692
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp14692
        AB  - In this paper, we provide causal evidence of the immediate and near-term impact of stringent COVID-19 lockdown policies on employment outcomes, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home orders were issued and enforced in two spatially delimited areas, bringing Ghana's major metropolitan centres to a standstill, while in the rest of the country less stringent regulations were in place. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the three-week lockdown had a large and significant immediate negative impact on employment in the treated districts, particularly among workers in informal self-employment. While the gap in employment between the treated and control districts had narrowed four months after the lockdown was lifted, we detect a persistent nationwide decline in both earnings and employment, jeopardizing particularly the livelihoods of small business owners mainly operating in the informal economy.
        KW  - informal economy
KW  - employment
KW  - lockdown
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - Ghana
        ER  -