This study evaluates the costs and benefits of alternative COVID-19 strategies for Norway, drawing on ex-post evidence from countries that pursued markedly different approaches. We argue that an elimination strategy-combining strict infection control with stringent border measures until a...

Childhood immunisation coverage in New Zealand has fallen since 2016, with the decline accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using administrative data from Stats NZ's Integrated Data Infrastructure, we examine determinants of immunisation uptake and how these have changed over time. We find...

The COVID-19 pandemic was a major shock for working parents, who faced sudden disruptions in both their work environment and their children's schooling. We study the effect of remote schooling on parental labor market outcomes in Sweden, a setting characterized by minimal COVID-related...

One of the main types of government intervention aimed at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic were the social distancing measures. This article presents a novel approach to examining the relationship between social distancing and workforce composition. The model used is a SIRD model with dynamically...

This study examines the effect of a typhoon on low-income urban neighborhoods in the Philippines during the coronavirus disease quarantine. Using household panel data, we assess welfare-as measured by psychological distress, food consumption, and human capital investment-exploiting...

The COVID-19 pandemic was a major shock for working parents, who faced sudden disruptions in both their work environment and their children’s schooling. We study the effect of remote schooling on parental labor market outcomes in Sweden, a setting characterized by minimal COVID-related...

Hassan et al. (2024) describe a randomized controlled trial conducted in Bangladesh during COVID-19. This comment identifies data irregularities from the original paper's replication package and notes its connection to other published papers. Critically, Hassan et al. (2024) andWang et al....

Jack et al. (2023) estimated the impact of district-level schooling modes (in-person, hybrid, or virtual learning) during the 2020-2021 academic year on standardized test pass rates for grades 3-8 across 11 U.S. states. Between 2019 and 2021, average pass rates declined by 12.8 percentage points...

At the onset of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown in the Philippines in April 2020, the Asian Development Bank, in partnership with the Philippine government and the private sector, implemented the Bayan Bayanihan (BB) food relief program which served approximately 162,000 households...

This paper examines the effects of state capacity on the reported Covid-19 infection (and mortality) rate and its policy implications. We analyse two dimensions of state capacity which were critical during the pandemic. The healthcare capacity acted to contain the virus outbreak (an effect we...

Background: Government-imposed lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted essential healthcare services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including childbirth delivery care. While a few studies have documented a decline in institutional deliveries, little is known about the...

Objective: This study aims to assess the protective mask notifications used in the Safety Gate/RAPEX system (an early warning system for managing safety used by the European Commission) between 2020 and 2022 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study continues research into the impact...

During several weeks in the second half of the year 2020, the cantons of Switzerland could choose to adopt the government-determined facial-mask policy, corresponding to mandatory facial-mask wearing on public transport, or a strict facial-mask policy, corresponding to mandatory facial-mask...

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the stock market returns has received much attention from researchers and practitioners, the evidence on the government invention on stock market returns in frontier markets in the Asia-Pacific is very scanty. This study first revisits the relationship...

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought global disruptions, impacting societies and economies significantly, while vaccine hesitancy remains a pressing concern. This paper introduces a framework for analyzing vaccination decision-making, emphasizing the roles of perceived costs and social influences....

Purpose This study addresses the COVID-19 infection and its relationship with the city's constructive intensity, commuting time to work and labor market dynamics during the lockdown period. Design/methodology/approach Microdata from formal workers in Recife was used to adjust a probability model...

This paper reviews the history of the practice of quarantines, rediscovering the 19th century 'Sanitarian' movement in Britain that sprang from a recognition that quarantines had failed to stop the spread of diseases and were not cost-effective. To our knowledge, the key figure among the...

Critics protest loudly against restrictions imposed by politicians during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: Mandatory masks, lockdowns, school and business closures. This paper examines (1) the extent to which these policies have indirectly contributed to limiting the number of COVID-19 cases...

The purpose of this report is to analyze the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the vaccine industry from an international perspective. The objective is to learn from the experience and contribute to the design of better tools for future vaccine development and manufacturing, as we...