World Development under COVID-19: Advanced Researches on Societal Impacts and Drivers

Dear Colleagues,

You are invited to submit your research to an exciting and essential upcoming Special Issue of the MDPI journal World.

The COVID-19 pandemic has now continued for more than two years, and this global public health crisis has not only caused significant loss of human life and debilitating long-term health effects but has also seriously harmed the performance of the economy on both a national and global scale. To decrease the impact of COVID-19 on public health, the governments of many countries have restricted the internal movement of their citizens and other residents, as well as aviation and transportation. They have also closed enterprises and factories deemed unnecessary over various periods.

These policies and the evolution of the pandemic itself have impacted the service and manufacturing industries. More and more people have turned from offline to online activities, including students and service providers such as teachers, physicians, and lawyers. At the same time, socio-economic and political developments played a role in the transmission and manifestation of the pandemic over time.

The resulting massive change in our lives has spawned emerging service-oriented industries, such as live-streaming, online education, food delivery, online meetings, etc. Meanwhile, different nations and geographical regions have taken various measures to strengthen economic activities and protect public health. For example, some authorities have reduced the payment amount of medical insurance collected by governments and encouraged companies to permit teleworking to minimize expenses. The public has generally treated these extra government interventions with understanding. Still, considerable minorities in various countries refused to participate in top-down national efforts to promote public health, rejecting measures such as vaccination, wearing masks, and social distancing.

This Special Issue aims to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the national, regional, continental, and global economies and economic policies. We are primarily, interested in the empirical effects of COVID-19 on people's socio-economic and political life; however, other topics will also be considered. We cast a wide net in inviting research in line with the enormity of the COVID-19 crisis.

There are a number of potential topics within the scope of this Special Issue. Examples include the impacts of COVID-19 on travel, entertainment use and provision, the use and provision of education services at all levels (preschool, elementary, middle school, high school, vocational, university), tourism, consumption, employment, unemployment, portfolio investment, company investment, public and private saving, public and private borrowing, public and private lending, paying taxes, spending on durable goods, defaulting on personal and national debt obligations, using and providing healthcare services, using and providing environmental health services, access and eligibility to healthcare and environmental health services, public following of government measures to combat the pandemic, participating in politics and civic society, volunteering, migrating within and across national borders, host region/country accepting or rejecting immigrants, protesting, demonstrating, respecting law and order, crime, individuals and organizations acting against/for governments, provision of foreign aid by governments and multilateral organization, and using armed force for political purpose within and across countries.

Other questions that may be addressed in this Special Issue include (but are not limited to):

• How do national, regional, and global governing policies help or harm people facing the socio-economic and political shock caused by COVID-19?
• Have these measures been effective?
• Have societies run into healthcare capacity limits that necessitated making tough choices regarding who to treat and to what extent?
• Have governments played a role in finding cures for the disease or offered measures that have not worked?
• Have political considerations, such as winning elections and the ability to implement facing opposition groups, impacted the measures government to address the pandemic?
• Have governments introduced barriers to the use of healthcare and environmental health services due to the pandemic, and if so, which groups saw reduced access?
• Have governments tightened immigration policies and country entry requirements due to the pandemic?
• What can we learn from our ongoing experience of COVID-19?
• Should we change pandemic laws and regulations in light of COVID 19, and if so, why, which, and how?
• Does our COVID-19 experience tell us anything about facing infectious diseases under climate change in the future?
• What have been the immediate and long-term labor market impacts of COVID-19?
• What have been the emerging industries and new trends during the COVID-19?
• What have been the socio-economic impact of government interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic?
• Have COVID-19 pandemic forces played a role in deciding national and local elections? If yes, where, when, how, why, and with what impact?
• Have governments and their accolades intensified scapegoating each other, international organizations, public health agencies, and healthcare providers as responsible for the pandemic? If yes, where, when, how, why, and what was the impact on the pandemic?
• Can pandemics such as COVID-19 deteriorate international relations to the point of countries retreating from established international laws and norms and even going to war?
• What has been the relationship between sentiment generated by coronavirus-related news and social, political, and economic behaviors?
• How do the answers to all such questions vary over time and across countries, national development levels, ethnoreligious groups, minorities, genders, ages, marital status, race, other demographic aspects, education levels, socio-economic status, groups marginalized due to sexual orientation or political views, refugees, asylum seekers, and authorized and unauthorized immigrants?
• Have COVID-19 aspects played a role in the stability of law and order, legitimacy of governments, civil conflict and war, international diplomacy, international trade and investment, international power politics (e.g., threats, warning, deterrence, displaying force), and international use of force?

The above topics entertained examples of research that examines the impact of COVID-19-related forces on the socio-economic and political lives of the people. We also encourage research on the social, economic, demographic, geographic, environmental, and political drivers of aspects of COVID-19; for example, transmission, hospitalization, treatment (genuine or bogus), mortality, long-term effects (long COVID), immunity (individual, herd), vaccines (development, use), and government and private sector barriers to accessing healthcare services.

We encourage all forms of article submission, including research articles, reviews of associated studies, communications, comments, statistical analyses, data analyses of other types, case studies, and simulations, provided they link to the empirical world. We particularly encourage analyses that evaluate future policy implications in light of their results and use their results to evaluate existing policies.

The potential contribution we go through peer-review and Special Issue editor review processes. Proposed publications should conform to the submission guidelines of World.

Prof. Dr. Rafael Reuveny
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. World is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.