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.
Identifying and mitigating the impact of Covid-19 on inequalities experienced by people from BAME backgrounds working in health and social care
Prior to Covid-19, the NHS England Workforce Race Equalities Standard (WRES) found that BAME staff experience considerably greater levels of workplace harassment and discrimination, lower pay, less control and poorer working conditions than non-BAME ...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Stephani Hatch
Countries
Addressing inclusivity in the spatial and social impacts of Covid-19 on the self-employed in the UK
The self-employed are a particularly vulnerable group in this current crisis. In contrast to elsewhere, the UK has seen significant growth in self-employment, now reaching 15% of the workforce. They are predominant in those sectors most hit by shutdo...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Darja Reuschke
Countries
Rescuing a `sick’ labour market: using online vacancy data to track Covid-19’s economic impact
This project aims to identify the impact of Covid-19 and consequent lockdown measures on labour demand, using unique real-time data on UK online job postings, combined with text analysis and causal econometric research designs. - Firstly, we will con...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Mirko Draca
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 on economic inequality and employment progression
The applicants have already collected novel survey data from a large representative sample of UK workers on 25th March 2020. We find large and significant differences in the impact of the economic disruption across workers of different income levels,...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Abigail Adams-Prassl
Countries
Where does work belong anymore? The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on working in the UK
The Covid-19 outbreak has forced companies to embrace home-based working (HBW) at such speed that they have had little opportunity to consider the impact on their workers. It can be argued that the crisis has led to the most significant, intensive so...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Abigail Marks
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 on small business employment and hours: real-time estimates with homebase data
We use worker-firm matched data from Homebase to construct new real-time estimates of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on employment and hours worked of small businesses. We find four key results: (1) employment of small businesses in four of the ...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Andre Kurmann
Countries
My home is my castle – the benefits of working from home during a pandemic crisis: evidence from Germany
This paper studies the relation between work and public health during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. Combining administrative data on SARS-CoV-2 infections and short-time work registrations, firm- and worker-level surveys and cell phone tracking d...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Jean-Victor Alipour
Countries
The heterogeneous labor market impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic
We study the distributional consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on employment. Using CPS data on stocks and flows, we show that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. Although employment losses have been widespread, ...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Matias Cortes
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
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
The effect of Covid-19 on labor market flows by occupation and gender
For the US and Canada, we compare the Covid-19 effect on gender in terms of labour flows including movements in and out of employment, unemployment and non-participation as well as the allocations across occupations. In particular, we categorize occu...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Audra J. Bowlus
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
The impact of Covid-19 lockdown on employment and mental health
Enforcing social distancing via economy-wide lockdown is considered as an effective measure to prevent transmission of the novel coronavirus Covid-19. Consequently, accompanied by a large number of job losses, a lockdown has severe labor market and e...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Kabir Dasgupta
Countries
Labor market outcomes and time use during the Coronavirus outbreak
This project will study labor market outcomes and time use by US households during the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak. We are particularly interested in the effect of the outbreak on three interrelated areas. First, how did the outbreak impact labor marke...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Alexander Bick
Countries
Labour supply in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic: empirical evidence on hours, home office, and expectations
Using a survey module administered in late March 2020, we analyze how working hours change under the social distancing regulations enacted to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. We study the Netherlands, which are a prototypical Western European country, bo...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Hans-Martin von Gaudecker
Countries
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
Labor market flows and the Covid-19 economy
I examine labor market flows in the CPS through March 2020. Although there was a dramatic single month increase in the unemployment rate and exit rate from employment, most cyclical flows (hiring, employer-to-employer flows, quits) have not yet chang...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Eliza Forsythe
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
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
