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.
Building resilience during the pandemic: evidence from a cash transfer program in Bolivia
Exploiting the context of a large-scale, untargeted, non- contributory pension program in bolivia, we study the short-term effects of cash transfers on household resilience during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. We compare households that became ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Nicolas Bottan
Countries
The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the Covid pandemic: evidence from Brazil
This project aims to evaluate the impact of emergency cash transfers on workers’ beliefs about the coronavirus. It focused on the impacts of ‘Auxilio Emergencial’, a cash grant provided to low-income households in response to income falls cause...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Fernanda Leite Lopez de Leon
Countries
Social response to early-stage government control measures of Covid-19 in Colombia: population survey, April 8-20 2020
On Monday, March 16, 2020, the government of Colombia announced actions to control Covid-19. These recommendations directly affected the entire population and included: reducing physical contact; reducing mobility and cancelling unnecessary travel; w...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Juan Carlos Rivillas-García
Countries
Poverty and Covid-19 in developing countries
In March 2020, shelter-in-place and social-distancing policies have been enforced or recommended all over the world to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. However, strict containment is hardly achievable in low-income countries, as large parts of population...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Olivier Bargain
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
Coronavirus and climate change – individual spillover in private public good provision
The need for private climate protection measures to achieve the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreements is not in question. But how does this insight change in the light of another global crisis, the corona pandemic? People are scared by infectious...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Elke D. Groh
Countries
Covid-19 and small firms: expectations, relief take-up and firm dynamics
Many small businesses have already been deeply affected by the Covid-19 crisis, leading them to lay off employees, temporarily close shop, or go out of business completely. In response, governments have passed specific provisions to help support smal...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: John Eric Humphries
Countries
The short-term effect of quarantine requirement on domestic violence
Quarantines implemented worldwide following the spread of the coronavirus resulted in many people having to spend more time with their families and partners, which can potentially lead to an increase in intra-family violence. Our study seeks to asses...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Secondary Topic: Public spending, taxes & debt
Lead investigator: M. Amelia Gibbons
Countries
More than words: leaders’ speech and risky behavior during a pandemic
How do political leader’s words and actions affect people’s behavior? We address this question in the context of Brazil by combining electoral data and geo-localized mobile phone data for more than 60 million devices throughout the entire country...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Nicolas Ajzenman
Countries
Measuring social distancing: an empirical analysis using geo-location data from smartphones
This research project uses anonymized geo-location data from 60 million mobile phone users in Brazil to quantify the impact of coronavirus lockdown measures on social distancing. The results confirm that the current share of the population staying ho...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Tharcisio Leon
Countries
Are palliative cash transfers effective to counteract the effects of stay-at-home orders? evidence from Peru
Several governments in LAC are increasingly imposing mandatory quarantines for all citizens to contain the expansion of the Covid-19 pandemic. These measures have proved to be the most effective to flatten the curve, but their downside are the econom...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Matthew Bird
Countries
Entering the labour market during a pandemic: scarring effects and youth unemployment
This research aims to investigate the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for labour market entrants, in particular the scarring effects on university graduates and the impact on youth unemployment. Macroeconomists have described the pandemic-drive...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Lead investigator: Francesco Amodio
The impact of emergency cash assistance during a pandemic: experimental evidence from Colombia
We evaluate the impact of cash relief for vulnerable households during a pandemic. On March 31, 2020, Colombia rolled out an unconditional cash transfer program to help low-income households deal with the economic consequences of the coronavirus pand...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Juliana Londoño-Vélez
Countries
Effect of Coronavirus on bank loans and credit rationing in an emerging market economy
Amid the outbreak of Covid-19, there have been a number of initiatives to keep businesses afloat. In this study, we aim to explore how the supply side, particularly the banking sector, responded to this shock by using highly granular Colombian loan-l...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Yasin Kürşat Önder
Countries
Showing life opportunities: Covid-19 rapid response survey
More than 1.5 billion students have to stay at home due to Covid-19 school closures, more than 90% of total enrolled learners (UNESCO, 04.01.2020). To ensure learning continuity, students have to study at home. However, it is unclear how the students...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Igor Asanov
Countries
Youth empowerment in Bolivia
We evaluate a program that aims to help vulnerable youth aged 15-18 find a job, improve their working conditions and strengthen their income generation capacity. In order to achieve these goals, the program, which is implemented in four regions of Bo...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Selim Gulesci
Countries
