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.
RELIEF centre
The Future Education team of the RELIEF Centre have started a collaboration with the Lebanese University (LU) to develop a massive online open course (MOOC) focused on remote learning, framed within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic but also appli...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Science, technology & innovation
Lead investigator: Diana Laurillard
Agreements must be kept? Residential leases during Covid-19
This paper studies how a Covid-19 lockdown affected residential lease payments. Survey data on 1511 Israeli renter households show nearly one in eight households not paying full rent during the lockdown, with these households holding back, on average...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Itai Ater
Countries
Small business under the Covid-19 crisis: expected short- and medium-run effects of anti-contagion and economic policies
During the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crisis, governments around the world have implemented large-scale anti-contagion policies to contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in combination with a series of economic policies to mitigate the econom...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Kohei Kawaguchi
Countries
Impacts of Covid-19 on rural households in Bangladesh
The Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) is conducting a survey of rural households in Bangladesh to better understand Covid-19’s impacts on vulnerable people and guide the development of policy responses that improve social protection. This pho...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Peter Morgan
Countries
Corona, lockdown, local GDP and Individual well-being: a comparison of regions in New Zealand with machine learning forecasts
We study the impact of local economic prospects on the well-being of individuals in reaction to the Corona lockdown and thereafter. We expect that well-being is positively affected by the economic outlook in the local region, as approximated via AI-b...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Nora Szech
Countries
Assessing inequality in the school closure response to Covid-19
The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has caused school closures in more than 190 countries, affecting over 90% of the world’s student population. School closures can widen learning inequalities and disproportionately hurt vulnerable st...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Lead investigator: Xiqian Cai
Countries
Trust in the healthcare system and Covid-19 treatment in the developing world – survey and experimental evidence from Armenia.
Covid-19 continues to spread across the globe at an exponential speed, infecting millions and overwhelming even the most prepared healthcare systems. Concerns are looming that the healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are mos...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Armenak Antinyan
Countries
Covid-19 shocking global value chains
The Covid-19 epidemic hit China in December 2019. Even before it turned into a pandemic, Covid-19 has strongly affected the world economy through global value chains. We use a quantitative trade model with input-output linkages to gauge the effects o...
Primary Topic: Trade & supply chains
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Peter Eppinger
Countries
Listening to young lives at work: impact of the global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on young people in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam
The survey aims to answer questions about impact of the pandemic, policies to contain the spread of the virus, and the subsequent economic slowdown in four developing countries. Building on almost twenty years of the project, the survey will examine ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Marta Favara
Covid-19 lockdown, institutional responsiveness, and household well-being: evidence from India
The countrywide lockdown has been the dominant strategy of the Indian government to arrest the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the state and central governments should be focusing on formulating broad policies, the local government (Panchayats) ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Vivek Pandey
Countries
The effects of Covid-19 crisis on Japanese households: a study using the data from the special survey of Japan Household Panel Survey(JHPS)
Using the data from the special survey of the Japan Household Panel Survey (JHPS), this study aims to clarify the effects of Covid-19 crisis on households, labour market outcome, health and wellbeing, and how those changes affect inequality in Japan....
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Isamu Yamamato
Countries
Does Covid-19 affect neighborhood amenity?
This paper studies the impact of Covid-19 on neighborhood amenity by analyzing the effect of confirmed Covid-19 cases on housing prices in China. Home buyers may not choose housing units in neighborhoods that have confirmed Covid-19 cases because of ...
Primary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Naqun Huang
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 lockdown and re-opening on the housing market: evidence from China
This paper evaluates the performance of the housing market in China after the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent economy re-opening. We construct both daily and weekly housing price indices for more than 30 cities by analyzing 600 thousand housing tran...
Primary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Naqun Huang
Countries
Housing market discrimination following the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, there were frequent reports of discrimination against ethnic Asians across the world. Discrimination within countries often targeted individuals from the epicenters of the outbreak. We focus on the impacts of discrimi...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Ziming Liu
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
Covid-19, firm exposure, and firm value: a tale of two lockdowns
We study how a public health crisis affects firms at different phases of outbreak. Using an event study approach, we find that the stock market in China responded significantly to two symbolic events in the outbreak of Covid-19: (1) the lockdown of H...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Haoyuan Ding
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 lockdown on employment and mental health
Enforcing social distancing via economy-wide lockdown is considered as an effective measure to prevent transmission of the novel coronavirus Covid-19. Consequently, accompanied by a large number of job losses, a lockdown has severe labor market and e...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Kabir Dasgupta
Countries
Risk taking during a global crisis: evidence from Wuhan
We conducted a repeated survey on risk taking behavior across a panel of subjects in Wuhan, China – ground zero of the Coronavirus pandemic – before and after the outbreak began. Our baseline survey was administered on October 16th, 2019 among gr...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Di Bu
Countries
The causal influence of information about Covid-19 on laypersons trust in government, perception of their living conditions, and economic expectations
The current Covid-19 crisis has profound effects around the world. A potentially important factor for the perception of the crisis by laypersons appears to be the specific type of information they receive. Focusing on two emerging markets, Thailand a...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Bernd Hayo
Covid-19, city lockdowns, and air pollution: evidence from China
The rapid spread of Covid-19 is a global public health challenge. To prevent the escalation of its transmission, China locked down one-third of its cities and strictly restricted personal mobility and economic activities. Using timely and comprehensi...
Primary Topic: Science, technology & innovation
Lead investigator: Guojon He
Countries