Panel data-set of energy poverty policy measures during the COVID pandemic (2020-2021)

This panel data-set is the first to use the original cross-country data from the original COVID-19 map (Hesselman et al 2021) on emergency measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the affordability and continuity of energy supplies to households, to generate a data set that incorporates information about the start and end dates of measures, as well as dates on which the measures were extended or suspended. The data-set thereby builds on the rich qualitative data recorded on the COVID-19 Energy Map for the period of March 2020-March 2021. This period represents the first year of the pandemic, and the period for which data on the COVID-19 map is updated for all regions. To this end, information about dates has been extracted from the text description of each of the measures, and any gaps in relevant information were filled as necessary through additional research (e.g., in case measures originally applied until the end of states of emergency or lock down periods or when start or end dates were not clearly stated). With this information, we created a longitudinal structure to indicate month by month whether a certain measure was in place. The data are organized in a user-friendly way, allowing not only experts and researchers but also non-experts and those interested in general, to analyse the month-by-month policy changes across countries and link them to other socio-economic factors.

The dataset along with the R code to replicate the analysis is freely available from Figshare and we developed an interactive graphical data visualization tool with maps to allow the users an easy exploration of the information via Shiny. Visit www.covidenergymap.com for more information.