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.
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
Maximizing effectiveness of policy-based responses to Covid-19: mapping citizens’ preferences over multi-dimensional trade-offs
At the onset of large-scale health crises such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the unavailability of reliable medicine-based responses implies that the role of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and public health policies are essential in conta...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Shaun Hargreaves Heap
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
Effects of Covid-19 pandemic on scientists’ research
The onset of Covid-19 has had an immediate impact on how scientists are able to use their time and resources to do research. However, there is a lack of data on how scientists are responding to this event and the heterogeneous disruptions to specific...
Primary Topic: Science, technology & innovation
Lead investigator: Kyle Myers
Countries
Do Environmental, Societal, and Governance (ESG) efforts make firms less vulnerable to financial market shocks? Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic
Previous research indicates that stocks of companies endowed with high levels of Environmental, Societal, and Governance (ESG) responsibility characteristics fared better during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. But it is not known why this happens,...
Primary Topic: Banks & financial markets
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Markku Kaustia
Countries
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
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...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Francesca Borgonovi
Countries
Haiti in the age of covid: facing the pandemy and other challenges…
Fighting Covid in a country where about 1/2 of the population has no access to safe water and 3/4 lives with less than US$2 a day is both extremely demanding and asking very fundamental questions about where to channel the obviously undersized resour...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Lead investigator: Jean-Baptiste Antenord
Countries
Early evidence of the impact of Covid-19 and the recession on older workers in the United States
We summarize the early effects, and anticipated future effects, of the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting recession on older workers in the United States. We start by discussing what we know about how older workers faired in prior recessions in the Unit...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Patrick Button
Countries
NSF-rapid: the Job Posting in Recession and Recovery (JPRR) project
The Job Posting in Recession and Recovery project will develop near real time indicators of labor demand for new workers by occupation, geographic area, and firms using job postings downloaded daily from company websites by a job search engine. The p...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Erling Barth
Countries
Belief in science influences physical distancing in response to Covid-19 lockdown policies
Physical distancing reduces transmission risks and slows the spread of Covid-19. Local and regional governments in the United States have issued shelter-in-place policies to mandate physical distancing. Yet compliance with these policies is uneven an...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Science, technology & innovation
Lead investigator: David Van Dijcke
Countries
Job search behaviour in the united states during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study examines the effect of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on U.S. job search activity by developing sectoral and state-level job search indices. We document that Covid-19 has a significantly negative effect on job search, and that this eff...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Wei-Fong Pan
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 on us stock market: Fama-French models
The paper evaluates the performance of Fama-French models on US stock during Covid-19. All data used in constructed models have origination from Fama-French official website from 1st January 2000 to 31st March 2020. (Fama and French 2020). The result...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Dominik Horvath
Countries
Improving bureaucratic effectiveness during the Covid-19 crisis
We study whether positive and negative reinforcement messages to supervisors can help improve bureaucratic outcomes in times of crisis. In many parts of the developing world, it is difficult to get bureaucrats to complete tasks. Focusing on school pr...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Catherine Rodríguez
Countries
Accepting the mask, accepting the mosque? the effects of Covid-19 related face covering on prejudice towards religious veiling.
Using a large scale lab-in-the-field experimental setting, we study how the mitigation efforts for Covid-19 in the form of covering the face through masks affect the behavior and perception of subjects towards others. In particular, we study whether ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Samreen Malik
Countries
Covid-19 health messaging to underserved communities
In the US, recent statistics show that African American and Latinx communities bear a disproportionate burden from Covid-19. Reaching vulnerable and underserved populations is therefore crucial to combating the disease. However, most public messaging...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Marcella Alsan
Countries
Gender equality in work and Covid-19 deaths
On average, women comprise a smaller share of deaths from Covid-19. Variation in the share of Covid-19 deaths for women across countries and US States suggests that biological factors cannot fully account for this gender difference. I hypothesize tha...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Renée Adams
Countries
The impact of shutdown policies on unemployment during a pandemic
We use high-frequency Google search data, combined with data on the announcement dates of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the Covid-19 pandemic in U.S. states, to isolate the impact of NPIs on unemployment in an event-study framework. E...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Edward Kong
Countries
School closures, shelter-in-place, and crime and legal proceedings
Across the world, Covid-19 shelter-in-place rules have limited mobility and required most adults and children stay at home. Men and women face increased stress from fear of coronavirus infection, economic uncertainty, job loss, or increased child-car...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Scott Cunningham
Countries
