Regional Economic Growth Convergence and Spatial Growth Spillovers at times of covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia

itially detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the outbreak of novel coronavirus, widely known as COVID-19, has attracted worldwide attention. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the first detected case outside of China was reported in Thailand on 13 January 2020 (WHO 2020a). Thereafter, the number of infected people around the world started to show an explosive trend. Referring to the Situation Report of WHO, by the end of January 2020, the disease had infected 9,826 people globally, out of which 106 people were situated in 19 countries outside China (WHO 2020b). By the end of June 2020, the same report had announced more than 10 million confirmed cases and more than 500,000 deaths (WHO 2020c). To limit the massive spread of the virus, more than 100 countries worldwide had implemented lockdown by the end of March 2020, either a full or partial lockdown (BBC 2020). As lockdown policy massively instituted around the world, people’s activities had been greatly reduced, including economic and business. Several ideas explain how the pandemic may affect economic activities. A report from Asian Development Bank (ADB 2020) mentions that COVID-19 outbreak will negatively affect economic activity