7 New Studies of the Economic Impact of COVID-19 and Policy Responses

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a particularly heavy toll on the elderly in the United States and other nations, leading to calls to target lock-down policies and other pandemic responses to this group. The age profile of the infection fatality rate (IFR) for COVID-19 is a critical input in designing such policies. Andrew Levin and his collaborators have combined data from a number of studies that measure the prevalence of COIVD-19 in various populations with data on COVID-19 fatalities to estimate age-specific IFRs (27597). Their estimates suggest very low IFRs at younger ages, and sharply-rising values at older ages: 1.3% at age 65 and 14% at age 85. Levin summarizes the findings in the short video above. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related topics may be found here.

Seven NBER working papers distributed this week examine the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and various policy responses to it. One studies the strengths and weaknesses of the social safety net for those who experienced pandemic-related income losses (27911). Another considers the US labor market during the pandemic through the lens of a job search model (27924). Two study the pandemic’s impact in developing countries, one investigating how capital flows to emerging markets were affected by the COVID-19 shock (27927) and another analyzing patterns of food insecurity in Malawi and Liberia (27932). One paper documents the changes in both residential and commercial electricity demand during the pandemic (27937), while another describes how widely-available self-tests, even if not very accurate, could induce self-isolation and affect the virus’ spread (27941). The final paper reports that the Payroll Protection Program substantially expanded liquidity for small firms by relaxing lending constraints that banks had imposed prior to that program (27945).

More than 270 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 Like all NBER papers, they are circulated for discussion and comment, and have not been peer-reviewed.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.