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.
Social cost with no political gain: the “Chinese virus” effect
Naming a contagious disease, such as Covid-19, by the geographic locality where the disease originates or starts, for example, Wuhan or China, may stigmatize specific ethnic groups related to that locality, and such stigmatizing behavior will further...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Yixin Liu
Countries
Preferences and economic decision-making in the wake of Covid-19: experimental evidence from China
Using a large-scale experiment in China we study whether exposure to a major public health crisis affects the stability of economic preferences. We utilise a unique three-wave panel dataset of 539 students at Beijing Universities, collected in Octobe...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Paul Lohmann
Countries
Containing the virus or reviving the economy? evidence from individual expectations during the Covid-19 epidemic
How does an epidemic affect individuals' expectation on economic prospects? We implement an incentivized longitudinal online survey with randomized controlled trials during the Covid-19 epidemic in China to answer this question. We find that low...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Keyang Li
Countries
Belief change to market economy or planned economy? shock from Covid-19
Covid-19 has caused panic buying, temporary supply shortage and soaring prices. The Chinese government has formulated restrictive policies to guide the market order. We are curious whether the epidemic had an impact on the belief in the economic syst...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Naixi Liu
Countries
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
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
Migration and the labor market impacts of Covid-19
Labor migration is a fundamental component of household income for a large number of households in many parts of the world, especially in poorer and more rural areas. Migrant households are hardest hit by Covid-19 mitigation policies as social distan...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Nathan Barker
Countries
Economic determinants of violence in the home: the case of Sweden during Covid-19
Violence within the home is the most common form of interpersonal violence for women. While children and men are also victims of abuse of various kind within the family, intimate partner violence (IPV) committed by men against women is generally the ...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Maria Perrota
Countries
Does the EU convergence machine still work and how will the Covid-19 crisis impact it?
Economic convergence has been one of the explicit goals of the EU from its very beginning. The prospect of higher living standards has undeniably been a major attraction of EU membership. Conversely, economic divergence may undermine support for the ...
Primary Topic: Nations, regions & cities
Secondary Topic: Public spending, taxes & debt
Lead investigator: Patrick Bisciari
Uncovering the effects of Covid-19 on wellbeing and economic decision-making
To counter the public health emergency caused by the spread of Covid-19, “stay-at-home” executive order have been issued in most states across the U.S.. Because of the social distancing measures, the fear of income and employment losses and the f...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Andreas Loschel
Countries
Covid-19, the stability of preferences and environmental choices
Recent studies and surveys show that Covid-19 not only poses a threat to individuals’ physical health, but also threatens individuals’ mental health due to income and employment losses, changes in daily routines and the general increased fear and...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Andreas Loschel
Countries
Household behaviour: the Covid-19 “dance” phase
Until a vaccine arrives, forecasting economic activity is even more difficult than usual. For example, in the UK it is striking to see the difference between the IMF’s baseline scenario GDP loss of 6.5% for 2020, and the Office for Budget Responsib...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Stefanie J. Huber
Life in social isolation
The global pandemic of Covid19 has forced many people around the world to suddenly live in social isolation. The consequences of mass-scale social isolation on individuals’ mental health and wellbeing are still unknown. In this project, we study th...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Marina Della Giusta
The implicit health-money trade-off in Covid-19 pandemic
The strategies to manage Covid-19 pandemic involve a challenging trade-off for policy-makers. On one hand, the closure of all non-essential economic activities (lockdown) helps to reduce the diffusion of the epidemic. On the other hand, lockdown come...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Vincenzo Carrieri
Countries
Do cash transfers help sustain economic and psychological well-being in times of crisis – experimental evidence from Uganda
We evaluate the impact of cash grants offered to a random sample of rural households in Uganda on their economic and psychological well-being during the COVID19 crisis. The cash grants were provided shortly before the Government of Uganda ordered a n...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Kjetil Bjorvatn
Countries
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
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
Hang up on stereotypes: domestic violence and anti-abuse helpline campaign
We estimate the consequences of a government-led anti-domestic-abuse campaign launched in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic on the number of calls to the italian domestic violence helpline. In the week after the start of the campaign, we document a ...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Marco Colagrossi
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
