This paper examines trends in indicators of gender equality and women's development, using evidence derived from individual indicators and gender equality indices. We extend both the United Nations Development Program's Gender Development Index and Gender Inequality Index to examine time trends....

This paper uses an individual-level survey conducted by the Edelman Trust Barometer in mid-April for 11 advanced and emerging market economies to examine perceptions of government performance in managing the health and economic crisis, beliefs about the future, and attitudes about...

Child poverty increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 alone, the number of children suffering from poverty in the EU increased by 19 percent, or close to 1 million. Left unaddressed, this would not only affect individuals’ life prospects and well-being but also have...

The paper presents estimates of poverty [extreme poverty PPP$1.9 and PPP$3.2] and consumption inequality in India for each of the years 2004-5 through the pandemic year 2020-21. These estimates include, for the first time, the effect of in-kind food subsides on poverty and inequality. Extreme...

Should donors who are interested in the effectiveness of developmental programs rely on conditional budget support or on project aid? To answer this question, we present a model in which only a subset of the developmental expenditures can be subject to conditionality. We show that budget support...

Poverty in Mexico was high before the COVID-19 pandemic and has been exacerbated by the pandemic, with significant variation across states. Education losses from the pandemic are likely to be large and worsen pre-existing disparities; unless mitigated soon, they could contribute to heightened...

We introduce two types of agent heterogeneity in a calibrated epidemiological search model. First, some agents cannot afford staying home to minimize their virus exposure, while others can. Our results show that these poor agents bear most of the epidemic's health costs. Moreover, we show that...

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 recession led to an increase in demand for digital occupations in the United States. Using O*NET to capture the digital content of occupations, we find that regions that were hit harder by the COVID-19 recession experienced a larger increase in the...

This paper introduces a simple, frequently and easily updated, close to the data epidemiological model that has been used for near-term forecast and policy analysis. We provide several practical examples of how the model has been used. We explain the epidemic development in the UK, the USA and...

Work absence is an important part of the individual decision on actual working hours. This paper focuses on sickness absence in Europe and develops a stylized model where absence is part of the labor-leisure decision made by workers and the production decision made by profit-maximizing firms,...