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.
How does household spending respond to an epidemic? consumption during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic
We explore how household consumption responds to epidemics, utilizing transaction-level household financial data to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 virus. As the number of cases grew, households began to radically alter their typical spending ...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Scott R. Baker
Countries
Political partisanship influences behavioral responses to governors' recommendations for Covid-19 prevention in the United States
Voluntary physical distancing is essential for preventing the spread of Covid-19. Political partisanship may influence individuals' responsiveness to recommendations from political leaders. Daily mobility during March 2020 was measured using loc...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Guy Grossman
Countries
The global impact of Covid-19 on fintech adoption
We draw on mobile application data from 74 countries to document the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the adoption of digital finance and fintech. We estimate that the spread of Covid-19 and related government lockdowns have led to between a 22 an...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Jonathan Fu
Effect of a federal paid sick leave mandate on physical mobility
Physical distancing is a vital non-pharmaceutical strategy to overcome the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) public health threat. The inability to take paid leave from work that cannot be conducted remotely is a crucial barrier to individuals bein...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Martin Anderson
Countries
Consumer responses to the Covid-19 crisis: evidence from bank account transaction data
This paper uses transaction-level customer data from the largest bank in Denmark to estimate consumer responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and the partial shutdown of the economy. We find that aggregate card spending has dropped sharply by around 25% f...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Asger Lau Anderson
Countries
Polarization and public health: partisan differences in social distancing during the Coronavirus pandemic
We study partisan differences in Americans' response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Political leaders and media outlets on the right and left have sent divergent messages about the severity of the crisis, which could impact the extent to which Republ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Hunt Allcott
Countries
The responses of consumption and prices in Japan to the Covid-19 crisis and the Tohoku earthquake
This note compares the responses of consumption and prices to the Covid-19 shock and another large-scale natural disaster that hit Japan, the Tohoku earthquake in March 2011. The comparison shows that the responses of supermarket sales and prices at ...
Primary Topic: Lessons from history
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Tsutomu Watanabe
Countries
The early effects of coronavirus-related social distancing restrictions on brands
This paper presents some of the first evidence on the effect of the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) in the US on retail footfall traffic. The paper uses granular visit data from cell-phone tracking to estimate the shift in visits to different types ...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Catherine E. Tucker
Countries
What do we learn from SARS-CoV-1 to SARS-CoV-2 evidence from global stock markets
This paper studies global stock market reactions to Covid-19 outbreaks caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. The stock markets in countries that suffered from 2003 SARS diseases caused by a similar virus (SARS-CoV-1) react more quickly and strongly to the ...
Primary Topic: Lessons from history
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Hong Ru
The invisible risk: pandemics and the financial markets
Are pandemics systemically important to modern-day financial markets? This study uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a natural experiment for testing how large-scale pandemics affect the financial markets. Using hand-collected data at the firm level, I fin...
Primary Topic: Banks & financial markets
Lead investigator: Jordan Schoenfeld
Countries
Covid-19 pandemic, public attention, and policy responses
Despite all countries being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the government's' responses have varied extensively in terms of speed, policy content, as well as the level of compulsion. We explore to what extent differences in the timing of...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Cevat Giray Aksoy
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
Nowcasting Norwegian household consumption with debit card transaction data
The recent shutdown of significant portions of the worldwide economy, in order to restrain the outbreak of the coronavirus, has triggered a global recession. The uncertain consequences of the rapid spread of the virus and the induced infection contro...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Knut Are Aastveit
Countries
On the effects of Covid-19 on online labour markets: empirical evidence from Europe
In online labour market platforms, projects can be posted and completed anywhere in the world. They are – intensified by Covid-19 – at the core of the debate about the future of work and the conditions under which we work online. Using unique com...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Frank Mueller-Langer
Shutdown policies and worldwide conflict
We provide real-time evidence on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions policies on conflicts globally. We combine daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of coronavirus to study how conflict levels vary ...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Lead investigator: Nicolas Berman
Market reactions to the arrival and containment of Covid-19: an event study
We study the short-term market reactions of US and European stocks during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Employing an event study, we document that stocks react significantly negative to the announcement of the first death in a given country...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Thomas Heyden
Birds of a feather lockdown together: mutual bird-human benefits during a global pandemic
Feeding backyard wildlife has impure public good characteristics – it can satisfy specific human motivations whilst also improving bird populations. We document a surge in human interest in connecting with wild birds during lockdowns to address the...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Michael Brock
How the Covid-19 lockdown affected gender inequality in paid and unpaid work in Spain
The Covid-19 pandemic led many countries to close schools and declare lockdowns during the spring of 2020, with important impacts on the labor market. We document the effects of the Covid-19 lockdown in spain, which was hit early and hard by the pand...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Lidia Farre
Countries
Compulsory face mask policies do not affect community mobility in Germany
There is currently a heated debate about making face masks compulsory in public spaces to contain Covid-19. A key concern is that such policies could lead to risk compensating behaviour and thereby undermine efforts to maintain social distancing and ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Roxanne Kovacs
Countries
The economic effects of Covid-19 containment measures
Many countries around the world have implemented stringent containment measures to halt the spread of the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and limit the number of fatalities. Though crucial to slow the course of the pandemic, these measures entail...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Pragyan Deb
