Has the COVID-19 pandemic converged across countries?

The outbreak of COVID-19 has induced economic and financial disruptions to global economies, consistent with those experienced during previous episodes of economic or financial crises. This study offers a critical perspective into the spread of the virus by investigating the convergence patterns of COVID-19 across 155 countries from March 2020 to August 2021. The club clustering algorithm is used to verify the convergence patterns of infection and death rates in these countries. The findings show that full panel convergence cannot be achieved indicating the presence of sub-convergent clusters. Cluster formation for death rates includes the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, among others. To understand the factors driving these results, we analyse the determinants of the convergence process of COVID-19. The probability of belonging to a cluster with higher death intensity increases with being above the age of 65, poverty, and for female smokers while handwashing shows beneficial effect on case intensity.

Perceived social support on postpartum mental health: An instrumental variable analysis.

The postpartum period is a challenging transition period with almost one in ten mothers experiencing depression after childbirth. Perceived social support is associated with mental health. Yet empirical evidence regarding the causal effects of social support on postpartum mental health remains scarce. In this paper, we used a nationally representative panel data of women to examine causality between perceived social support and postpartum mental health. We used fixed-effect method and included dependent variable lags to account for past mental health condition before birth (i.e., the pre-pregnancy and prenatal periods). The study also used an instrumental variable approach to address endogeneity. We find a declining trend in postpartum mental health between 2002 to 2018. Our study also showed that past mental health (i.e., before childbirth) is positively correlated with postpartum mental health. A universal routine mental health screening for expectant and new mothers should remain a key priority to ensure mental wellbeing for the mothers and their infants.