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.
Life with corona
IDS, ISDC and UNU-WIDER collecting real time data on the coronavirus and its social and economic impacts, to build a global knowledge base about how people are dealing with the epidemic (including on focus on trust, which was key in the response to t...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Nations, regions & cities
Lead investigator: Professor Patricia Justino
Covid-19: supporting parents, adolescents and children during epidemics (Co-SPACE)
Covid-19 and the related public health measures have led to major disruptions to families’ lives, with different pressures arising for children, young people and their families over time. There is some indication from research during epidemics in o...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Polly Waite
Habit formation from corona lockdown
To prevent the spread of Covid-19, many countries have implemented different degrees of lockdowns, which has profoundly changed the way people live their lives. In our study, we investigate how habits change during and after the Corona lockdowns. We ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Nora Szech
The political economy of lockdown: does free media make a difference?
This paper explores the role of the media in how governments are reporting on and responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. In countries with free media, more deaths increase the probability of imposing a lockdown and are associated with greater reduction...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Timothy Besley
The unequal effects of Covid-19 on economists' research productivity
The current lock-down measures are expected to disproportionately reduce women’s labor productivity in the short run. This paper analyzes the effects of these measures on economists' research productivity. We explore the patterns of working pa...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Noriko Amano-Patino
Economic policy responses to a pandemic: developing the Covid-19 economic stimulus index
In this project, we conduct a comprehensive review of different economic policy measures adopted by 166 countries as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic and create a large database including fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate measures. Furthermore, ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Ceyhun Elgin
World seaborne trade in real time: a proof of concept for building ais-based nowcasts from scratch
Maritime data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) have emerged as a potential source for real time information on trade activity. However, no globally applicable end-to-end solution has been published to transform raw AIS messages into eco...
Primary Topic: Trade & supply chains
Lead investigator: Diego A. Cerdeiro
Governments’ responses to Covid-19 all around the world
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, governments all around the world have implemented public health and economic measures to contain the spread of the virus and to support the economy. This project aims at tracking governments’ responses to Covid-19 i...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Simon Porcher
Effectiveness of government policies in response to the Covid-19 outbreak
This paper assesses the quantitative impact of government interventions on deaths related to the Covid-19 outbreak. Using daily data for 32 countries and relying on the stringency of the conducted policies, we find that the greater the strength of go...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Nations, regions & cities
Lead investigator: Theologos Dergiades
Risk perception and oil and gas markets under pandemic: evidence from Covid-19
The novel coronavirus (Covid-19) exposed individuals and investors to a great uncertainty about its short- and long-term health and economic ramifications, especially in the early days and weeks of the outbreak. This study documents oil and gasoline ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Behzod B. Ahundjanov
How online gig economy reshapes the international labour market amid Covid-19
Enabled by the Internet technology, online digital employment platforms have presented opportunities for employers and freelancers to find each other regardless of their physical locations and at lower administrative and search costs. The evolution o...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Yuan Gao
Political institutions and policy responses during a crisis
Do countries with differing political institutions respond differently to a national crisis? The coronavirus pandemic, where almost all countries were hit by the same crisis in a short span of time, provides a rare opportunity to answer this question...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Gaurav Chiplunkar
Democracy, culture, and contagion: political regimes and countries responsiveness to Covid-19
A widely held belief is that autocratic governments have been more effective in reducing the movement of people to curb the spread of Covid-19. Using the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), and a real-time dataset with daily informa...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Carl Benedikt Frey
Should I stay or should I go (out): the role of trust and norms in disease prevention during pandemics
In this paper we construct country specific indices of mobility and trust. We use Google Covid 19 Community Mobility Reports for the former, and World Values Survey and the European Values Study for the latter. We find that the trust index has some p...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Toker Doganoglu
In crisis we pray: religiosity and the Covid-19 pandemic
In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic is no exception. Daily data on Google searches for 95 countries demonstrates that the Covid-19 crisis has increased Google searches...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Jeanet Sinding Bentzen
The effects of Covid-19 on the gender gap in academic research productivity
The rapid spread of the new coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and the subsequent counter-measures, such as school closures, shift to working from home, and social distancing are disrupting economic activity around the world. As with other major economi...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Tatyana Deryugina
Our relationship with food during the Covid-19 pandemic
It has been clear for many years that policies and strategies are needed to transform towards more sustainable food systems. Now during the Covid-19 pandemic, food production, processing and distribution systems have been put under severe pressure. A...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Jeremy Millard
Emotional states and the Covid-19 pandemic: evolution, national differences, and their relationship with emergency policies
We propose to study the effect of Covid-19 on the emotional states of people in OECD and other countries by applying content analysis to internet searches recorded via Google Trends since 31 December 2019. Our aim is to understand how emotional state...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Zhiming Cheng
Banks as bridges? firm funding during the Covid-19 cash crunch
We conduct face-to-face interviews with the Heads of Credit of over 400 banks in 35 countries in Emerging Europe, Asia and the Middle East to collect data on these banks’ Covid-19 policies. We cover whether banks temporarily deferred payments by ex...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Cagatay Bircan
First to reach is last to forgive: evidence from the stock market impact of Covid-19
During December of 2019, the world became aware of a new global-scale threat called at first as Coronavirus, which changed the lives of millions of people around the globe. The coronavirus had multiple impacts regarding public policies, economic prod...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Sherif M. Hassan
