key: cord-0994953-r0u9kx9d authors: Akram, Vaseem; Rath, Badri Narayan; Sahoo, Pradipta Kumar title: Do COVID-19 cases follow a similar transition path? Evidence from Indian states date: 2020-12-23 journal: MethodsX DOI: 10.1016/j.mex.2020.101196 sha: b69f39f84ef6f86d7c99bb398e3d53ae8af6f8ee doc_id: 994953 cord_uid: r0u9kx9d This paper assesses the convergence of COVID-19 cases by obtaining transition paths of Indian states covering the period from August 01 to October 31, 2020. The results based on Phillips-Sul test show evidence of different transition paths. These findings are useful from the policy perspective, particularly to see whether existing efforts made for stopping the spread of COVID-19 by states/central governments are effective. • Convergence of COVID-19 cases across Indian states is investigated. • The Phillips and Sul test is applied. • Findings are in favour of different transition paths. The novel coronavirus disease has been spreading rapidly across the world [1] . India ranked as the second in COVID- 19 There is widespread of literature, which focus on the impact of COVID-19 on key macroeconomic indicators. For instance, a set of studies investigates the COVID-19 impact on crude oil prices, corporate performance, stock markets, energy, etc. [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24] . Few studies also explore the COVID-19 impact on firms/industry/sectors [25, 26, 27] . Moreover, [28] examine the convergence of COVID-19 cases and found that control of the spread among the countries is weak, but a detailed study on COVID-19 convergence at the sub-national level is scanty. Our study fills this research gap by complementing the above studies into three folds. First, none of the above studies discusses the growth and transition path of COVID-19 cases across Indian states. The investigation of COVID-19 convergence is crucial in the context of India from a readiness perspective as India is unlocking phase-wise to bring its economy back to track. Second, this study complements the [28] study by investigating the convergence based on clustering algorithms. To do so, we use Phillips and Sul (hereafter, PS) [29] techniques that make the clubs based on the COVID-19 cases of states" speed of convergence. Third, this study uses confirmed and recovered cases as a measure of COVID-19 and compute the speed of convergence for both indicators. The study is systemized as follows. Section 2 illustrates the methodology and data. Section 3 offers empirical results and the final section 4 concludes. To identify the transition paths of COVID-19, this study implements a novel approach propounded by Phillips and Sul [29] . This test is based on the clustering algorithm that clusters the club of countries or states based on transition paths. Moreover, this method considers the nonlinear time-varying factor unlike the Solow-Swan growth model [30, 31] . The most important feature of this test is that it does not count the "cointegration or unit root properties" and it considers the transitional dynamics in addition to long-run behaviour of the variable. In other words, it amends the bias that ascends from both "stationary and non-stationary or a mix of both series in the panel due to misspecification". All conventional unit root tests and and simple regression may not account the heterogeneity of cross-sections as a result, they may provide misleading results [32] . Thus, PS include both "common and crosssection" specific behaviour and find multiple steady-states (club convergence) unlike "beta and sigma convergence", which is built on a steady-state. PS [29] is written as follows: We also identified one group (that includes Nagaland and Maharashtra), which is neither converging nor diverging. Further, we also examine the convergence for COVID-19 recovered cases and results are reported in Panel B in Table 1 . The results show the existence of two clubs. Club 1, includes the highest recovery rate states and club 2 encompasses those states that have the least recovery rate but follow same transition path. The effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on the Turkish diesel consumption volatility dynamics Crude oil prices and COVID-19: Persistence of the shock The COVID-19 impact on the ASIAN stock markets Can the covid-19 pandemic and oil prices drive the us partisan conflict index? Oil price news and COVID-19-Is there any connection? Did bubble activity intensify during COVID-19? Has COVID-19 changed exchange rate resistance to Shocks? 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