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.
How is the Covid-19 accidental experiment around working from home changing the way the UK will work after lockdown?
This research is designed to support economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, providing timely, actionable insight and recommendations about Working from Home (WfH), and the long-term implications of crisis-driven adaptations for organisational pr...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Jane Parry
Countries
consumer data research centre (CDRC)
Using footfall data supplied from Huq Industries to analyse changes in activity levels during the period of the lockdown.
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Prof. James Cheshire
Countries
The geography of post Covid-19 shutdown recovery risk in UK economic activity. implications for recovery inequality and targeted stimulus
The Covid-19 shutdown is not affecting all parts of the UK equally. Economic activity in local consumer service industries (LCSI), such as retail outlets, restaurants, hairdressers, or gardeners has all but stopped; other industries are less affected...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Jesse Matheson
Countries
Sustaining pro-social and environmental behaviours beyond Covid-19
Covid-19 has triggered a global economic shutdown, leading to unintended reductions in carbon emissions and other pollutants as a result of decreased travel and consumption. Although a global pandemic that has caused close to 400,000 deaths at time o...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Energy & climate change
Lead investigator: Roger Fouquet
Countries
Consumers' mobility, expenditure and online- offline substitution response to Covid-19: evidence from French transaction data
This paper investigates a number of general phenomena connected with consumer behaviour in response to a severe economic shock, using billions of French card transactions measured before and during the Covid-19 epidemic. We examine changes in consume...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: David Bounie
Countries
Lock-down or let-it-flow: a spatial analysis of Covid-19 on Chinese economy
This paper studies the impacts of the outbreak of the Covid-19 and the lock-down policy on the Chinese economy. Combining the changes of daily migration flow data, industrial outputs data, population census data, and a spatial equilibrium model, we q...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Minjie Deng
Countries
Our relationship with food during the Covid-19 pandemic
It has been clear for many years that policies and strategies are needed to transform towards more sustainable food systems. Now during the Covid-19 pandemic, food production, processing and distribution systems have been put under severe pressure. A...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Jeremy Millard
First to reach is last to forgive: evidence from the stock market impact of Covid-19
During December of 2019, the world became aware of a new global-scale threat called at first as Coronavirus, which changed the lives of millions of people around the globe. The coronavirus had multiple impacts regarding public policies, economic prod...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Sherif M. Hassan
Consumer responses to the Covid-19 crisis: evidence from bank account transaction data
This paper uses transaction-level customer data from the largest bank in Denmark to estimate consumer responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and the partial shutdown of the economy. We find that aggregate card spending has dropped sharply by around 25% f...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Asger Lau Anderson
Countries
Macroeconomic effects and spillovers among countries of the Covid-19 pandemic
Since December 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic spread worldwide from China, passing to Europe in February 2020, and lastly in the US, in March 2020. According to the Air Transport Association, in February 2020 the global growth rate of air passengers dem...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Francesco Simone Lucid
How much of China and world GDP has the Coronavirus reduced?
Using a network approach, we estimate the output loss due to the lockdown of the Hubei province triggered by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Based on our most conservative estimate, China suffers about 4% loss of output from labor loss, and globa...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Shaowen Luo
Countries
Coronavirus disease 2019 and the global economy
Using daily data on the global coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) deaths, this paper investigates the corresponding effects on the global economic activity measured by the Baltic Exchange Dry Index (BDI). The empirical results based on a structural ...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Hakan Yilmazkuday
The early effects of coronavirus-related social distancing restrictions on brands
This paper presents some of the first evidence on the effect of the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) in the US on retail footfall traffic. The paper uses granular visit data from cell-phone tracking to estimate the shift in visits to different types ...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Catherine E. Tucker
Countries
Nowcasting Norwegian household consumption with debit card transaction data
The recent shutdown of significant portions of the worldwide economy, in order to restrain the outbreak of the coronavirus, has triggered a global recession. The uncertain consequences of the rapid spread of the virus and the induced infection contro...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Knut Are Aastveit
Countries
The cost of staying open: voluntary social distancing and lockdowns in the us
In combating the spread of Covid-19, some governments have been reluctant to adopt lockdown policies due to their perceived economic costs. Such costs can, however, arise even in the absence of restrictive policies, if individuals' independent r...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: David Van Dijcke
Countries
The sooner, the better: the early economic impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic
The size of the economic shocks triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of the associated non-pharmaceutical interventions have not been fully assessed because the official economic indicators have not been published. This paper provides e...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Asli Demirgüç-Kunt
Household behaviour: the Covid-19 “dance” phase
Until a vaccine arrives, forecasting economic activity is even more difficult than usual. For example, in the UK it is striking to see the difference between the IMF’s baseline scenario GDP loss of 6.5% for 2020, and the Office for Budget Responsib...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Stefanie J. Huber
Daily monitoring of economic activity in North America by electricity consumption
Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, governments across the globe mandated lockdowns that brought economic activity to an abrupt halt. In normal times, to gauge about the level of economic activity, policymakers consider an extensive set of macroeconomic data...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Tatjana Dahlhaus
Tracking the economic impact of Covid-19 in Europe and the United States
We use high-frequency indicators available with little or no delay to obtain estimates of the economic impact of Covid-19 in Europe and the United States. We highlight the following findings. (1) Energy usage in Europe suggest that GDP has declined b...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Sophia Chen
The impact of Covid-19 on consumption and income inequality
The Covid-19 pandemic has had large economic consequences in the US, directly contributing to soaring unemployment and massively depressed demand. Such rapid changes in household economic characteristics can certainly affect earnings, income, and con...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Loujaina Abdelwahed
Countries
