National Bureau of Economic Research
Coronavirus Pandemic Research
COVID-19 Mortality Lower in Higher-Ranked Nursing Homes
Nursing home residents account for more than 35 percent of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States. NBER Research Associate William Evans and Christopher Cronin, both of the University of Notre Dame, report substantial differences across nursing homes in the mortality rate from the virus. Their new working paper (28012) finds that facilities that achieved a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported substantially lower COVID-19 death rates than lower-ranked nursing homes. This differential was largely offset, however, by increased rates of non-COVID-19 mortality in highly ranked nursing homes. Evans describes these results in the video below. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related topics may be found here.
Seven NBER working papers distributed this week investigate the COVID-19 pandemic, its economic effects, and the public health and economic responses to it. One study analyzes the relationship between nursing home quality and the number of COVID-19 deaths (28012). A second examines the impact of the pandemic on educational attainment (28022), while a third assesses the economic returns to a regime of expanded virus testing (28031). One study estimates the effects of the Paycheck Protection Program on employment and firm survival (28032), while another considers the potential impact of credit market policies during the pandemic in light of experiences during the Great Recession (28039). One paper finds that political polarization has not increased during the pandemic (28036); another develops a new algorithm, using monthly data, for forecasting country-level economic growth, and describes potential applications in designing pandemic response policies (28014).
More than 290 NBER working papers have presented pandemic-related research. 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 Like all NBER papers, they are circulated for discussion and comment, and have not been peer-reviewed. They may be viewed in reverse chronological order or by topic area.
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Featured Working Papers
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