National Bureau of Economic Research
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Promoting Vaccine Take-up among Minority Populations
Widespread vaccination is a critical tool in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Achieving this goal requires not just vaccine availability, but high rates of voluntary take-up, including in sub-groups of the population whose members have limited confidence in, and connection to, the healthcare system. In a recent study (28593), NBER Research Associate Marcella Alsan of Harvard University and Sarah Eichmeyer of the University of Munich analyze various messaging strategies that target members of minority groups. They find that increasing the congruence between the messenger and the recipient, and acknowledging past shortcomings in the delivery of medical care to minority groups, can boost vaccine demand. Alsan summarizes these findings in the video below. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related research may be found here. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related research may be found here.
Two NBER working papers distributed this week report on economic, health, and related consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, or on the impact of public policies that respond to it. One studies the coping strategies of college students during the pandemic, as well as the relationship between different strategies and student outcomes (28803). The other analyzes the public health and economic impact of Texas’ repeal, in March 2021, of its mask-wearing mandate as well as capacity limits on businesses (28804).
More than 400 NBER working papers have addressed various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These papers are open access and have been collected for easy reference. Like all NBER papers, they are circulated for discussion and comment, and have not been peer-reviewed. View them in reverse chronological order or by topic area.
From the NBER Digest
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Trebbi and Washington to Codirect Political Economy Program
Francesco Trebbi of the University of California, Berkeley and Ebonya L. Washington of Yale University are the new codirectors of the NBER’s Political Economy Program, succeeding the late Alberto Alesina of Harvard University, who launched the program in 2006.
The new codirectors have studied a wide range of issues that span the field of political economy.
Trebbi is the Bernard T. Rocca Jr. Professor of Business and Public Policy at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. His research focuses on the determinants of polarization, lobbying and its effects, the design of political institutions, and the political economy of financial regulation. He has been an NBER affiliate since 2007.
Washington, an NBER affiliate since 2004, is the Samuel C. Park Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale. Her research examines the links between economic circumstances and political preferences, how candidate attributes affect voter turnout, the determinants of legislators' voting behavior, and the impact of the US Voting Rights Act of 1965. She currently chairs the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession.
From the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability
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Featured Working Papers
Resetting insurance deductibles at a frequency higher than annually would raise household welfare by between 6 and 10 percent of premium costs, with particularly large benefits for those with borrowing constraints, according to Long Hong and Corina Mommaerts.
Analyzing date from Italy, Francesco D'Amuri, Francesca Carta, and Till M. von Wachter report that a 10 percent increase in the number of older workers associated with an increase in the public pension retirement age is associated with a 1.8 percent rise in employment of young workers and 1.3 percent rise for those of middle age.
Analyzing the sudden exchange rate appreciation of the Swiss franc in 2015 on Swiss border import prices and retail prices, Raphael Auer, Ariel Burstein, and Sarah M. Lein find that the magnitude of border-price changes is associated with the currency of invoicing.
Skilled workers in China emigrate more in response to pollution than do the unskilled, resulting in higher wage premia for skilled workers in more polluted cities, according to a study by Gaurav Khanna, Wenquan Liang, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, and Ran Song.
Rich countries have experienced more deaths per head than poor ones from the COVID-19 pandemic, and experienced larger declines in income, Angus Deaton finds. International income inequality has decreased during the pandemic.
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