The impact of COVID-19 on industry-related characteristics and risk contagion

We use the cutting-edge causal forest algorithm to analyze the heterogeneous treatment effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on China's industry indexes. The variable importance index is used with the causal forest and complex network methods to analyze the characteristics of industrial relations and the types of industry risk contagion before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. The results show that the heterogeneity of industries was significantly weakened during the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, the COVID-19 outbreak changed the original structure of the industry related network, which shifted to a star network structure with leisure services at the core. It also changed the type of risk contagion between industries, from the original middleman risk type to the input risk type.

Automated summary

The study utilized the cutting-edge causal forest algorithm and complex network methods to analyze the heterogeneous treatment effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on China's industry indexes. It found that the heterogeneity among industries significantly weakened during the outbreak and led to a shift in the industry network structure to a star network with leisure services at the core. Additionally, the type of risk contagion between industries changed from the original middleman risk type to the input risk type.