Before revision:  The approach is validated by several robustness tests and by contrasting our estimates with the official statistics on the recession caused by COVID-19 in different European countries during the first  two quarters of 2020.
After revision:  The approach is validated by several robustness tests and by contrasting our estimates with the official statistics on the recession caused by COVID-19 in different European countries during the first wave of the pandemic. Our results are almost indistinguishable from the official statistics of the recession during the first two quarters of 2020.