Current Research
Map 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.
Does the Covid-19 pandemic increase or decrease pro-sociality and does it shift donations towards more local causes?
Locally occurring natural catastrophes typically seem to increase international solidarity (Scharf, Smith, and Ottoni-Wilhelm 2017). The global spread of the Covid-19 is unprecedented such that it is not clear what types of behavioral responses it is...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Maja Adena
Countries
Ethnic employment gap during the Covid-19 outbreak: great equalizer or divider?
Many employees lose their jobs as the result of Covid-19 outbreak (ILO, 19 March 2020). Moreover, the number of job openings decreases, making it harder for applicants to compete. This challenging situation can be particularly hard for minority group...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Igor Asanov
Countries
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
Improving task completion by school principals during the Covid-19 crisis
We study whether neutral, positive, or negative reinforcement messages given to schools’ principals can improve their bureaucratic efficiency in times of crisis. Under the Covid-19 health emergency urgency, the Ministry of Education asked all schoo...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Daniel Morales
Countries
Income effect in private contribution of public goods: economic impact payment in the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper studies the public good nature of Covid-19 mitigation effort, and illustrates the relationship between income level and the voluntary contribution to the Covid-19 mitigation effort. I build a theoretical model to show that there exists a t...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Ruohao Zhang
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
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
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
Understanding the impact of Covid-19 on economic outcomes and well-being of rural communities in western Uganda
We use high-frequency phone surveys to dynamically track the impact of covid19 over a 3-month period. We already have baseline data on a sample of 1,250 households randomly selected from rural villages in Western Uganda. These baseline surveys were c...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Mahreen Mahmud
Countries
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
Estimating the costs and benefits of mandated business closures in a pandemic
Typical government responses to pandemics involve social distancing measures implemented to curb disease propagation. We evaluate the impact of state-mandated business closures in the context of the Covid-19 crisis in the US. Using state-level variat...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Jean-Noel Barrot
Countries
Listening to young lives at work: impact of the global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on young people in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam
The survey aims to answer questions about impact of the pandemic, policies to contain the spread of the virus, and the subsequent economic slowdown in four developing countries. Building on almost twenty years of the project, the survey will examine ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Marta Favara
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
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
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
Willingness to get tested for Covid-19 antibodies: impact of prices, strength, and duration of protective immunity
We study willingness to get privately tested for Coronavirus (Covid-19) antibodies as well as willingness to pay (WTP) for these tests. Subjects trade off future access to private antibody tests against monetary payments. We measure WTP on a represen...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Marta Serra Garcia
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
Information search and financial market performance under pandemic: evidence from Covid-19
The discovery, and subsequent spread, of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) exposed both individuals and investors to a grave uncertainty about the potential health and economic ramifications of the virus, particularly in the early days and weeks of th...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Behzod B. Ahundjanov
Countries
Mitigation of risks of Covid-19 contagion and robotisation: evidence from Italy
The rapid and dramatic diffusion of the Covid-19 epidemic in Italy was tackled by the Italian government with social distancing measures and with the suspension of all economic activities, but ``essential'' sectors. A lively policy debate o...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Mauro Caselli
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
