This paper documents a substantial change in regional trade patterns precipitated by the war on Ukraine and the subsequent introduction of trade sanctions on Russia. It provides evidence suggestive of intermediated trade via neighbouring economies being used to circumvent the sanctions. The...

We quantify the commute time savings associated with work from home, drawing on data for 27 countries. The average daily time savings when working from home is 72 minutes in our sample. We estimate that work from home saved about two hours per week per worker in 2021 and 2022, and that it will...

This paper uses data on the near universe of job adverts posted online in the US to study the impact of the 2018 trade war on US job opportunities. We develop measures of labour market exposure to three key channels of impact from the trade war: import protection for US producers, the higher...

Geo-political tensions and disruptions to global value chains have led policy makers to re-evaluate their approach to globalisation. Many countries are considering regionalisation and friend-shoring – trading primarily with countries sharing similar values – as a way of minimising exposure...

Fresh water is an increasingly scarce resource across the world. To prevent excessive water usage, broad participation in appropriately priced municipal water infrastructure and services is necessary. This paper estimates the impact of improvements to water network infrastructure on the take-up...

Before Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Ukraine’s financial sector was small, fragmented and overly reliant on state banks. The sector has nevertheless weathered the initial shock of the war relatively well, reflecting the central bank’s restructuring efforts over the past decade. Even...

Countries have been increasingly decentralizing and devolving powers to lower levels of government in the hope of improving services delivery. Yet proliferation of governments, particularly in a developing country setting, may create fiscal and policy uncertainty and increase the tax and...

Almost all countries closed schools and universities during the Covid-19 pandemic, affecting more than 90 per cent of the world’s learners. A growing literature aims to estimate the effects of these school closures on learning outcomes, future earnings and GDP. We contribute to this literature...

Can policymakers improve macroeconomic performance by encouraging the entry of high-performance startups? To answer this question, we construct a novel and comprehensive data set on 1.3 million startups in ten European countries. We apply cluster analysis to identify distinct startup types and...

There is limited research on the determinants of firms’ green investment strategies in developing regions despite their importance to meet global climate change targets. Understanding how changes in firm climate investment affect environmental performance is essential for policy makers and...