Building an Alliance to Map Global Supply Networks

The global economy consists of more than 300 million firms, connected through an estimated 13 billion supply links [see supplementary materials (SM)], that produce most goods and services. It has long been unthinkable to analyze the world economy at the firm level, even less so its intricate network of supply chain linkages. This blind spot has left us ill-prepared to make fast and well-informed decisions, begetting, for example, prolonged shortages in raw materials and critical medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The value of sick pay

Not all countries provide universal access to publicly funded paid sick pay. Amongst countries that do, compensation rates can be low and coverage incomplete. This leaves a significant role for employer-provided paid sick pay in many countries. In this paper, we study who has access to employer-provided sick pay and how much it is valued by workers for themselves and others. We find that workers in jobs with high contact to others are particularly unlikely to have employer provided sick pay, as are economically insecure workers who are least able to afford unpaid time off work.

Perceived returns to job search

This paper provides new evidence on workers’ perceptions of the returns to job search effort using hypothetical vignettes. This allows us to overcome limitations with survey data on realized behavior in which search effort and reservation wages may be endogenous to perceived job finding rates. The perceived job finding probability is nearly linear in hours searched and only slightly concave for most respondents.

The Hidden Toll of the Pandemic: Excess Mortality in non-COVID-19 Hospital Patients

Seasonal infectious diseases can cause demand and supply pressures that reduce the ability of healthcare systems to provide high-quality care. This may generate negative spillover effects on the health outcomes of patients seeking medical help for unrelated reasons. Separating these indirect burdens from the direct consequences for infected patients is usually impossible because of a lack of suitable data and an absence of population testing.

Rather Doomed than Uncertain: Risk Attitudes and Transmissive Behavior Under Asymptomatic Infection

We analyze the relation between individuals’ risk aversion and their willingness to expose themselves to infection when faced with an asymptomatic infectious disease. We show that in a high prevalence environment, increasing individuals’ risk aversion increases their propensity to engage in transmissive behavior. The reason for this result is that as risk aversion increases, exposure which leads to infection with certainty becomes relatively more attractive than the uncertain payoffs from protected behavior.

Slums and Pandemics

How do slums shape the economic and health dynamics of pandemics? A difference-in-differences analysis using millions of mobile phones in Brazil shows that residents of overcrowded slums engaged in less social distancing after the outbreak of Covid-19. We develop and calibrate a choice-theoretic equilibrium model in which individuals are heterogeneous in income and some people live in high-density slums. Slum residents account for a disproportionately high number of infections and deaths and, without slums, deaths increase in non-slum neighborhoods.

Social Distancing and Supply Disruptions in a Pandemic - CEPR

We integrate an epidemiological model, augmented with contact and mobility analyses, with a two-sector macroeconomic model, to assess the economic costs of labor supply disruptions in a pandemic. The model is designed to capture key characteristics of the U.S. Input-Output Tables with a core sector that produces intermediate inputs not easily replaceable by the other sectors, possibly subject to minimum-scale requirements.

Perceived Returns to Job Search

This paper provides new evidence on workers’ perceptions of the returns to job search effort using hypothetical vignettes. This allows us to overcome limitations with survey data on realized behavior in which search effort and reservation wages may be endogenous to perceived job finding rates. The perceived job finding probability is nearly linear in hours searched and only slightly concave for most respondents.

Subscribe to COVID-19