By Date

Olivier Coibion, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Michael Weber The Covid-19 crisis in the US and the policy responses have led to unprecedented numbers of initial claims for unemployment, but there are concerns that total job losses are being understated. This column uses a repeated large-scale survey of households in the Nielsen Homescan panel to show that […] 

Maurice Obstfeld G20 leaders have called for greater international collaboration on the public health response to COVID-19. But this commitment lacked the necessary detail to trigger fast concrete actions and provide guidance and reassurance for citizens. Instead, the leaders tasked health minsters to develop “urgent actions” by April 19-20, 2020. As the virus continues to […] 

Even with the support policies implemented by European governments in response to the crisis, low-income workers will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution. With schools across Europe closed in the lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated. Combating […] 

This week’s IGM European Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) Even with the support policies implemented by European governments in response to the crisis, low-income workers will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution.

B) With schools across Europe closed in the lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated.

C) Combating the effects of the pandemic on inequality should be a priority for policy interventions. 

Ruben Durante, Luigi Guiso, and Giorgio Gulino Social distancing can succeed in slowing the spread of COVID-19 if citizens voluntary comply with it and internalize the cost of their mobility on others. How do civic values mediate this process? Using data on individual mobility across Italian provinces we document that, after the beginning of the […] 

On April 9th, 2020, the IGM hosted a webinar to examine various approaches to modeling the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis. James Stock (Harvard) moderated the event and speakers included Andrew Atkeson (UCLA), Martin Eichenbaum (Northwestern), Francesco Lippi (LUISS University), Thomas Philippon (NYU), and Eric Budish (Chicago Booth). Each of the speakers described their […] 

With the economy in lockdown, low-income workers who are above the poverty line will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution (even accounting for all government support schemes). With the economy in lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated. […] 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:
A) With the economy in lockdown, low-income workers who are above the poverty line will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution (even accounting for all government support schemes).

B) With the economy in lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated.

C) The mortality impact of Covid-19 is likely to fall disproportionately on disadvantaged socio-economic groups. 

Nicholas Bloom et al While assessing the economic impact of COVID-19 is essential, it is challenging due to the extreme speed with which the crisis unfolded. This column uses three forward-looking uncertainty measures to quantify the enormous increase in economic uncertainty over the past weeks. Feeding these COVID-induced uncertainty shocks into a model of disaster […]