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Current Research

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Economists 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.

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...
Lead investigator: Timothy Besley

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 ...
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Nora Szech

Social response to early-stage government control measures of Covid-19 in Colombia: population survey, April 8-20 2020

On Monday, March 16, 2020, the government of Colombia announced actions to control Covid-19. These recommendations directly affected the entire population and included: reducing physical contact; reducing mobility and cancelling unnecessary travel; w...
Countries

Moral suasion and the private provision of public goods: evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic

We study how moral suasion that appeals to two major ethical theories, Consequentialism and Deontology, affects individual intentions to contribute to a public good. We use the Covid-19 pandemic as an exemplary case where there is a large gap between...
Lead investigator: Moritz A. Drupp
Countries

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, ...
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Ceyhun Elgin

Trade-offs in automated political advertising regulation: evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic

Digital platforms have experienced pressure to restrict and regulate political advertising content. This paper presents evidence of unintended consequences of restrictions on political ads related to the Covid-19 pandemic. We use data on more than 30...
Lead investigator: Grazia Cecere

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...
Lead investigator: Simon Porcher

Consumer expectations around Covid-19: evolution over time

Since Apr 24, 2020, we have been collecting direct information on consumers’ expectations about the duration of social distancing rules, including stay-at-home and social-distancing rules, and of business closures, in the United States and Canada. ...
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Fabian Lange
Countries

The economic effects of Covid-19 and credit constraints: evidence from Italian firms' expectations and plans

We investigate the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the role played by credit constraints in the transmission mechanism, using a novel survey of expectations and plans of Italian firms, taken just before and after the outbreak. Most firm...
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Pierluigi Balduzzi
Countries

Shock salience and heterogeneity in individual behavior

We study heterogeneity in attitudes and behavior after the Covid-19 crisis in the population of international students across several university campuses in North America. More specifically, we study whether the response to the shock varies by field ...
Lead investigator: Livia Alfonsi
Countries

Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic

The success of non-pharmaceutical interventions to contain pandemics often depends greatly upon voluntary compliance with government guidelines. What explains variation in voluntary compliance? Using mobile phone and survey data, we show that during ...
Lead investigator: John M Barrios

Lives or livelihoods? perceived trade-offs and public demand for non-pharmaceutical interventions

We study the role of cost-benefit considerations in driving public demand for nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a large-scale online survey experiment with a representative sample of the US population, we introdu...
Lead investigator: Sonja Settele
Countries

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...
Secondary Topic: Nations, regions & cities
Lead investigator: Theologos Dergiades

Community health care and Covid-19 pandemic: experimental evidence from Uganda

The limited capacity of the health systems in many low-income countries, especially in rural areas, suggests that the rapid spreading of the Covid-19 virus could have huge consequences in those areas. On top of the direct impact of the virus, a growi...
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Martina Bjorkman-Nyqvist
Countries

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 ...
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Behzod B. Ahundjanov

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...
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Paolo Falco
Countries

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...
Lead investigator: Maja Adena
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...
Lead investigator: Carl Benedikt Frey

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...
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Gaurav Chiplunkar

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...
Lead investigator: Marta Serra Garcia
Countries