Category: Articles

The Covid-19 crisis has large impacts on the economy and these impacts are probably highly unequal among individuals and families. From a family perspective the lockdown situation is having a tremendous impact on two fundamental assets of families wellbeing: parents’ work and children’s education. Children are out of school or child care, without access to […]

The success of non-pharmaceutical interventions to contain pandemics often depends greatly upon voluntary compliance with government guidelines. What explains variation in voluntary compliance? Using mobile phone and survey data, we show that during the early phases of Covid-19, voluntary social distancing was higher when individuals exhibit a higher sense of civic duty. This is true […]

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 start of the pandemic, mobility declined disproportionately more in areas […]

We study the effect of social distancing, food vulnerability, welfare and labour Covid-19 policy responses on riots, violence against civilians and food-related conflicts. Our analysis uses georeferenced data for 24 African countries with monthly local prices and real-time conflict data reported in the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) from January 2015 until […]

We study how intentions to comply with the self-isolation restrictions introduced in Italy to mitigate the Covid-19 epidemic respond to the length of their possible extension. Based on a survey of a representative sample of Italian residents (N=894), we find that respondents are more likely to express the intention to reduce, and less willing to […]

The limited capacity of the health systems in many low-income countries, especially in rural areas, suggests that the rapid spreading of the Covid-19 virus could have huge consequences in those areas. On top of the direct impact of the virus, a growing concern is that the shift in attention and resources towards the Covid-19 pandemic […]

This paper investigates a number of general phenomena connected with consumer behaviour in response to a severe economic shock, using billions of French card transactions measured before and during the Covid-19 epidemic. We examine changes in consumer mobility, anticipatory behaviour in response to announced restrictions, and the contrasts between the responses of online and traditional […]

This paper uses transaction-level customer data from the largest bank in Denmark to estimate consumer responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and the partial shutdown of the economy. We find that aggregate card spending has dropped sharply by around 25% following the shutdown. The drop is mostly concentrated on goods and services whose supply is directly […]

Using footfall data supplied from Huq Industries to analyse changes in activity levels during the period of the lockdown. Lead investigator: Prof. James Cheshire Affiliation: University College London Primary topic: Recession & recovery Region of data collection: Europe Country of data collection UK Status of data collection Planned Type of data being collected: From private […]

The lockdown in South Asia has led to mass migration of people back to their home towns/villages as the work opportunities in urban centres shrink or are no longer available. This poses a public health risk to rural areas as migrants may spread the virus when they return and these areas are ill-prepared to handle […]