4 New Studies of Economic Impact of COVID-19 and Policy Responses

The COVID-19 pandemic led primary and secondary schools across the US to close their doors and shift to on-line learning in March 2020. Families scrambled to find ways to support their children's learning. Research Associate Joshua Goodman, in a joint study (27555) with Andrew Bacher-Hicks and Christine Mulhern, finds substantial geographic variation in the intensity of search for on-line educational resources. The jump in search activity was greatest in high-income urban areas and in places with excellent internet access. Goodman summarizes these findings, and their implications in the short video below.

Four NBER working papers distributed this week examine the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and analyze various policy responses to it. The studies amass evidence from past pandemics to address the potential long-run effects of COVID-19 (27805), investigate the credit market impact of the Federal Reserve’s pandemic-relief actions (27809), estimate the impact of a large public gathering on the spread of COVID-19 (27813), and analyze access to a potential future vaccine among minority groups under the current CDC vaccine distribution guidelines and an alternative “reserve system” allocation rule (27817).

More than 240 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 Like all NBER papers, they are circulated for discussion and comment, and have not been peer-reviewed. View them in reverse chronological order or by topic area.