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Current Research

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Economists 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.

Assessing policy to address the medium-run impact of Covid-19 on income and health inequality with models informed by the history of disease outbreaks

This research aims to inform policy by assessing interventions to mitigate the medium-run implications of Covid-19 on income and health inequality. The uniqueness of our work is that we will develop models to predict inequalities that are consistent ...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Lessons from history
Lead investigator: Konstantinos Angelopoulos
Countries

Covid-19 and councils' finances: understanding risks and impacts & improving policy

Councils are on the front line of the coronavirus crisis, being responsible for key services like social care and homelessness prevention and facing revenues falling due to lockdown. Government has provided them with billions of additional funding, b...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: David Phillips
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

Covid-19 and crime in England

The Covid-19 outbreak has changed the landscape for both licit and illicit activities. This project addresses the impact of the crisis on the latter by examining its effect on crime and criminal outcomes in England. The effect is prompted due to chan...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Lead investigator: Kriakos C. Neanidis
Countries

Lockdown and voting behaviour: a natural experiment on postponed elections during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The goal of this paper is to study the impact of the lockdown policy on voting behaviour, during the Covid-19 pandemic. We focus on France, where a differential lockdown was implemented across departments, based on the local diffusion of the disease....
Secondary Topic: Nations, regions & cities
Lead investigator: Tommaso Giommoni
Countries

My home is my castle – the benefits of working from home during a pandemic crisis: evidence from Germany

This paper studies the relation between work and public health during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. Combining administrative data on SARS-CoV-2 infections and short-time work registrations, firm- and worker-level surveys and cell phone tracking d...
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Jean-Victor Alipour
Countries

Bowling together by bowling alone: social capital and Covid-19

The literature documents a strong positive association between social capital and health. However, because personal social interactions are implicated in the spread of viral infections, areas with high levels of social capital may be especially at ri...
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Francesca Borgonovi
Countries