Is the Chinese Economy Well Positioned to Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic? the Financial Cycle Perspective

This paper conducts a time-frequency analysis of the macro-financial variables in China to assess its resilience in fighting the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). We find that the Chinese business and financial cycles over the short, medium, and long terms all are in, or close to, the contraction phase before the COVID-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, the Chinese economy has decoupled from the global financial cycle since 2015. These results suggest that China may be better positioned than other emerging economies to win the war against the pandemic. However, extraordinary macroeconomic policies are still needed to mitigate the pandemic-induced economic meltdown.