We use standardized end-of-course knowledge assessments to examine student learning during the disruptions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining seven economics courses taught at four US R1 institutions, we find that students performed substantially worse, on average, in Spring 2020 when...

We study how large shocks impact individuals’ skilling decisions using data from the largest online learning platform in Saudi Arabia. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a massive increase in online skilling, and demand shifted towards courses that offered skills, such as...

A substantial amount of money is spent on technology by schools, families and policymakers with the hope of improving educational outcomes. This paper explores the theoretical and empirical literature on the impacts of technology on educational outcomes. The literature focuses on two primary...

Beyond its immediate impact on public health and the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic has put democracy under stress. While a common view is that people should blame the government rather than the political system for bad crisis management, an opposing view is that dissatisfaction with government...

Childhood vaccinations are an important input to disease prevention, but vaccination rates have declined over the last decade due largely to parental fears about vaccine dangers. Education campaigns on the safety of vaccines seem to have little impact. Anecdotal evidence on disease outbreaks...

We analyze the role of international trade and health coordination in times of a pandemic by building a two-economy, two-good trade model integrated into a micro-founded SIR model of infection dynamics. Uncoordinated governments with national mandates can adopt (i) containment policies to...

It is sometimes said that an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic will be heightened appreciation of the importance of scientific research and expertise. We test this hypothesis by examining how exposure to previous epidemics affected trust in science and scientists. Building on the “impressionable...

The recession induced by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in major declines in employment of women, both from the demand side as firms reduced employment and from the supply side resulting from school closures and the closing of many child care facilities. We provide projections of possible...

Can bad news about COVID-19 induce negative expectations on sovereign credit risks? We investigate the factors driving credit default swap (CDS) spreads of emerging market sovereigns around the outbreak of COVID-19. Using 2014-2019 data, we estimate a two-factor model of global and regional...

The collapse of economic activity in 2020 from COVID-19 has been immense. An important question is how much of that resulted from government restrictions on activity versus people voluntarily choosing to stay home to avoid infection. This paper examines the drivers of the collapse using cellular...