Current Research
List viewEconomists from around the world are using real time data collection to better understand the impact the Covid-19 crisis is having on families, workers, firms and society, and how policies can help the recovery out of the crisis. Find out more about how these research teams are carrying out their projects, and what their findings are below.
Trust and trustworthiness in national and global governance
An online national survey in the UK, US and Italy which includes questions 9 on Covid-19 and political trust. Focus groups exploring political trust in towns and cities relating to Covid-19.
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Will Jennings
Economic narratives and policy ppinions: a survey experiment on Covid-19 stories
Narratives may impact people’s beliefs on relevant policy issues, and political context may mediate these effects. Indeed, some specific contexts may be more easily swayed by certain stories that provide explanations for current social and economic...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Armenak Antinyan
Countries
Helping families help themselves during stay-at-home orders: effects of a mobile phone intervention to address child maltreatment and violent parent-child Interactions
Lockdown measures imposed throughout the world to contain the spread of the Covid-19 have drastically changed household dynamics. The stay-at-home orders, together with the temporary closure of schools and the change to virtual education schemes, hav...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Sofia Amaral
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 on small business employment and hours: real-time estimates with homebase data
We use worker-firm matched data from Homebase to construct new real-time estimates of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on employment and hours worked of small businesses. We find four key results: (1) employment of small businesses in four of the ...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Andre Kurmann
Countries
Trade-offs in automated political advertising regulation: evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic
Digital platforms have experienced pressure to restrict and regulate political advertising content. This paper presents evidence of unintended consequences of restrictions on political ads related to the Covid-19 pandemic. We use data on more than 30...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Grazia Cecere
Consumer expectations around Covid-19: evolution over time
Since Apr 24, 2020, we have been collecting direct information on consumers’ expectations about the duration of social distancing rules, including stay-at-home and social-distancing rules, and of business closures, in the United States and Canada. ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Fabian Lange
Shock salience and heterogeneity in individual behavior
We study heterogeneity in attitudes and behavior after the Covid-19 crisis in the population of international students across several university campuses in North America. More specifically, we study whether the response to the shock varies by field ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Livia Alfonsi
Countries
The heterogeneous labor market impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic
We study the distributional consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on employment. Using CPS data on stocks and flows, we show that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. Although employment losses have been widespread, ...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Matias Cortes
Countries
Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic
The success of non-pharmaceutical interventions to contain pandemics often depends greatly upon voluntary compliance with government guidelines. What explains variation in voluntary compliance? Using mobile phone and survey data, we show that during ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: John M Barrios
Families under confinement: Covid-19, domestic violence, and alcohol consumption
Evidence suggests that during the Covid-19 lockdown, alcohol consumption has increased and income has gone down among several households in Mexico City. The existing literature relates alcohol consumption and negative income shocks to a greater numbe...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Lead investigator: Jose Roberto Balmori de la Miyar
Countries
Lives or livelihoods? perceived trade-offs and public demand for non-pharmaceutical interventions
We study the role of cost-benefit considerations in driving public demand for nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a large-scale online survey experiment with a representative sample of the US population, we introdu...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Sonja Settele
Countries
Income effect in private contribution of public goods: economic impact payment in the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper studies the public good nature of Covid-19 mitigation effort, and illustrates the relationship between income level and the voluntary contribution to the Covid-19 mitigation effort. I build a theoretical model to show that there exists a t...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Ruohao Zhang
Countries
Tracking the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives of American households
Since March 10, 2020, we have been tracking effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on respondents to the nationally representative Understanding America Study (UAS). After an initial survey that covered March 10-31 March 2020, we launched tracking surveys ...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Arie Kapteyn
Countries
Improving task completion by school principals during the Covid-19 crisis
We study whether neutral, positive, or negative reinforcement messages given to schools’ principals can improve their bureaucratic efficiency in times of crisis. Under the Covid-19 health emergency urgency, the Ministry of Education asked all schoo...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Daniel Morales
Countries
Estimating the costs and benefits of mandated business closures in a pandemic
Typical government responses to pandemics involve social distancing measures implemented to curb disease propagation. We evaluate the impact of state-mandated business closures in the context of the Covid-19 crisis in the US. Using state-level variat...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Jean-Noel Barrot
Countries
Willingness to get tested for Covid-19 antibodies: impact of prices, strength, and duration of protective immunity
We study willingness to get privately tested for Coronavirus (Covid-19) antibodies as well as willingness to pay (WTP) for these tests. Subjects trade off future access to private antibody tests against monetary payments. We measure WTP on a represen...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Marta Serra Garcia
Countries
Preferences, beliefs and behavior during the Covid-19 outbreak
In this study, we examine the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak on beliefs, behavior and preferences in the United States. To identify direct economic effects of the crisis, we measure the negative impact of the pandemic on participants’ health and f...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Sheryl Ball
Countries
Information search and financial market performance under pandemic: evidence from Covid-19
The discovery, and subsequent spread, of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) exposed both individuals and investors to a grave uncertainty about the potential health and economic ramifications of the virus, particularly in the early days and weeks of th...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Behzod B. Ahundjanov
Countries
The effect of Covid-19 on labor market flows by occupation and gender
For the US and Canada, we compare the Covid-19 effect on gender in terms of labour flows including movements in and out of employment, unemployment and non-participation as well as the allocations across occupations. In particular, we categorize occu...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Audra J. Bowlus
Public firm borrowers of the us paycheck protection program
We provide an initial assessment of the US Paycheck Protection Program by studying the 273 public firms that received a total of $929 million in loans between April 7-27, 2020. Despite receiving significant media coverage, these firms comprise 0.3% o...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Anna Cororaton
Countries
