In early 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak famously triggered a massive wave of unemployment. Less famous are the channels through which the shock of that outbreak transmitted to labour markets. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey data for Italy, I studied whether firms’ decisions to reduce...

We examine employment effects of the COVID-19 crisis in Norway during the initial lockdown, through the subsequent recovery, and after the dust had settled. While we identify large and socially skewed effects of the crisis through its early phases, we find no long-term effects on employees...

Previous economic downturns have led to increases in applications for and, eventually, receipt of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. In the pandemic-induced recession of 2020 and its aftermath, however, SSDI applications did not increase. One important factor may have been the...

Using state level data between 1990 and 2006, we find no empirical evidence that payday lending leads to more bankruptcy filings, which casts doubt on the debt trap argument against payday lending. We capture the intensity of the payday lending activity in a state by the number of payday lending...

Cybersecurity breaches pose a substantial privacy concern in the digital era. We investigate how customers respond to privacy leakage in multiple unexpected data breaches. Difference-in-differences estimates show that digital payments declined by 4.6% ~ 7.5% relative to cash payments immediately...

This study considers the economic impact of Covid-19 on enterprises in four Central American countries – El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. At the time of the analysis neither the pandemic nor its economic consequences had fully run their course. It is not, therefore, a definitive...