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.
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
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
The idiosyncratic impact of an aggregate shock: the distributional consequences of Covid-19
Using new data from the Understanding Society: Covid-19 survey collected in April 2020, we show how the aggregate shock caused by the pandemic affects individuals across the distribution in the UK. The survey collects data from existing members of th...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Michaela Benzeval
Countries
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
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
Covid-19 and the demand for flexible annuities
The demand for voluntary lifetime annuities is low. Two potential driving mechanisms behind this phenomenon are uninsurable risk early in life and financial illiteracy. Covid-19 generates a large amount of uncertainty for workers. We measure preferen...
Primary Topic: Pensions, savings & investment
Lead investigator: Pim Koopmans
Countries
Parental job loss and job insecurity during the Covid-19 pandemic and children’s outcomes
The aim of this research is to study how job loss and felt job insecurity due to the Covid19 pandemic are impacting factors that directly affect the cognitive and non-cognitive achievement of children: parental mental and physical health, income, tim...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
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
Promoting social distancing in a pandemic: beyond the good intentions
Reminders to promote social distancing have been ubiquitous throughout the Covid-19 crisis, but little is known about their effectiveness. Existing studies find positive impacts on intentions to comply, but no evidence exists of actual behavioural ch...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Paolo Falco
Countries
The short- and long-term consequences of Covid-19 on gender equality
The Covid-19 crisis has substantially affected the organisation of work in the labor market and in the household. In particular, with the start of the lock-down, virtually none of the typical components of home production can be outsourced to the mar...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Claudia Hupkau
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 on work and time-use in the family
This project analyses the impact of the severe contention measures and stay-home orders resulting from the Covid-19 outbreak on the work and time-use of families in Spain. Between March 14 and May 2, 2020, the country suffered the strictest lockdown ...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Lídia Farré
Countries
Working from home: occupations and performance, results from Hungary
In the world of strict measures against the pandemic including stay-at-home orders and lockdowns working from home is part of the solutions to keep the economy running. In this paper we construct a simple measure of working from home potential using ...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Bence Kiss-Dobronyi
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
Privacy under pandemics: Do we really want to be tracked?
During the current Covid-19 situation, health authorities across the globe are gathering and using personal data to efficiently track and fight the spreading of the disease. Citizen are asked to trade privacy against better health or against a faster...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Ole Christian Wasenden
Stereotypes and political attitudes in the age of coronavirus: empirical evidence from Italy
The novel coronavirus has led to increasing concerns about racial discrimination and anti-EU sentiment in various European countries. We use a newly-developed bot that works through Facebook Messenger to conduct a longitudinal online survey in Italy ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Dante Donati
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
Children’s education and use of time during the Covid-19 lockdown in France and Italy
The Covid-19 crisis has large impacts on the economy and these impacts are probably highly unequal among individuals and families. From a family perspective the lockdown situation is having a tremendous impact on two fundamental assets of families we...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Hugues Champeaux
The impact of lockdown on the division of housework and childcare in French households
Before the Covid-19 outbreak, the burden of unpaid work in Europe, e.g. housework and childcare, was mostly carried-out by women - with women spending around 22 hours per week and men only 9 hours per week in unpaid work (European Commission 2019). W...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Anne Boring
Countries
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
