In the past decade, the Appalachian economy in the United States was scarcely discussed in the literature. No studies were devoted to local economic development after the outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease in 2019. This paper fills the literature gap by empirically examining how the Appalachian economy transitioned under the influence of the pandemic. Using county-level data from the Appalachian Regional Commission between 2019 and 2022, the study investigates how the Appalachian economy regressed during the pandemic. Transitioning economy indices were calculated for 420 local counties by comparing their composite index values before and after the outbreak of the pandemic. Regressions were run to estimate the influences of the unemployment rate, per capita income, and the poverty rate. During the pandemic, the unemployment rate consistently had the largest impact on the Appalachian counties’ composite index value and the least effect on the poverty rate. The results suggest that the most effective strategy is for the government to reduce the local unemployment rate to improve the economic ranking.

在过去的十年里，美国的阿巴拉契亚经济在文献中几乎没有被讨论过。在 2019 年冠状病毒病爆发后，没有专门针对当地经济发展的研究。本文通过实证研究阿巴拉契亚经济在大流行的影响下如何转型，填补了文献空白。该研究使用阿巴拉契亚地区委员会 2019 年至 2022 年的县级数据，调查了阿巴拉契亚经济在大流行期间如何倒退。通过比较大流行病爆发前后的综合指数值，计算了420个当地县的转轨经济指数。运行回归以估计失业率、人均收入和贫困率的影响。疫情期间，失业率一直对阿巴拉契亚县的综合指数值影响最大，而对贫困率的影响最小。结果表明，最有效的策略是政府降低当地失业率以提高经济排名。