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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.

Covid-19 and small firms: expectations, relief take-up and firm dynamics

Many small businesses have already been deeply affected by the Covid-19 crisis, leading them to lay off employees, temporarily close shop, or go out of business completely. In response, governments have passed specific provisions to help support smal...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: John Eric Humphries
Countries

Income and wealth shocks and expectations during the Covid-19 pandemic

In early April 2020 we conducted a survey on a representative sample of more than 8,000 US households to study the effect of the coronavirus crisis on household income and retirement wealth, households' expectations about the recovery, and the i...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Tobin Hanspal
Countries

Evolution of atemporal and intertemporal risk preferences, time preferences, and subjective beliefs about prevalence and mortality of Covid-19 during the course of the global crisis: an incentivised experiment with American and South African samples

Policies adopted by most countries in 2020 for suppressing transmission of the novel coronavirus and of illness and mortality due to Covid-19 depend on compliance with mandated drastic and costly risk control measures by the general public. While res...
Lead investigator: Glenn W. Harrison
Countries

Our Covid story

Our Covid Story is a longitudinal study examining the impact of pandemic stress on health behaviors. Two cohorts of participants, from New York City and the broader United States, use a mobile app to complete approximately 5-10 minutes of self-report...
Lead investigator: Paul Glimcher
Countries

Political partisanship influences behavioral responses to governors' recommendations for Covid-19 prevention in the United States

Voluntary physical distancing is essential for preventing the spread of Covid-19. Political partisanship may influence individuals' responsiveness to recommendations from political leaders. Daily mobility during March 2020 was measured using loc...
Lead investigator: Guy Grossman
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...
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...
Lead investigator: Eliza Forsythe
Countries

Polarization and public health: partisan differences in social distancing during the Coronavirus pandemic

We study partisan differences in Americans' response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Political leaders and media outlets on the right and left have sent divergent messages about the severity of the crisis, which could impact the extent to which Republ...
Lead investigator: Hunt Allcott
Countries

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...
Lead investigator: Yixin Liu
Countries

The early effects of coronavirus-related social distancing restrictions on brands

This paper presents some of the first evidence on the effect of the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) in the US on retail footfall traffic. The paper uses granular visit data from cell-phone tracking to estimate the shift in visits to different types ...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Catherine E. Tucker
Countries

Coronavirus effects on the U.S. unemployment: evidence from Google trends

This paper investigates the relationship between Google search queries of "coronavirus" and "unemployment" using daily data from the United States. The investigation is achieved by employing a structural vector autoregression mode...
Lead investigator: Hakan Yilmazkuday
Countries

The invisible risk: pandemics and the financial markets

Are pandemics systemically important to modern-day financial markets? This study uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a natural experiment for testing how large-scale pandemics affect the financial markets. Using hand-collected data at the firm level, I fin...
Lead investigator: Jordan Schoenfeld
Countries

Staying home saves lives, really!

As coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is spreading around the world, many national and local governments have imposed social restrictive measures to limit the spread of the virus. Such quarantine measures in different cities across the world have brought...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Lead investigator: Soheil Shayegh
Countries

Market reactions to the arrival and containment of Covid-19: an event study

We study the short-term market reactions of US and European stocks during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Employing an event study, we document that stocks react significantly negative to the announcement of the first death in a given country...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Prices & interest rates
Lead investigator: Thomas Heyden

The cost of staying open: voluntary social distancing and lockdowns in the us

In combating the spread of Covid-19, some governments have been reluctant to adopt lockdown policies due to their perceived economic costs. Such costs can, however, arise even in the absence of restrictive policies, if individuals' independent r...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: David Van Dijcke
Countries

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...
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...
Lead investigator: Andreas Loschel
Countries

Social connections with Covid-19-affected areas increase compliance with mobility restrictions

We study the role of social connections in households’ responses to mobility restrictions imposed amid the Covid-19 epidemic, using aggregated and anonymized Facebook data on social connections and mobile phone data for tracking movement. Measured ...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Ben Charoenwong
Countries

How does the Covid-19 crisis affect access to mental health care? evidence from an audit field experiment in the United States

Crises such as pandemics and recessions increase mental illness and suicidality. Care from mental health professionals (MHPs) such as counselors, therapists, and psychologists, can help people affected by these conditions. However, little is known as...
Lead investigator: Patrick Button
Countries

Covid-19, stay-at-home orders and well-being: evidence from Google trends

We investigate the impact of the government response to Covid-19 on health and well-being using Google Trends Data. More precisely, we aim to test the impact of stay-at home orders on 12 Google Trends topics related to health and well-being in the US...
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Abel Brodeur