We consider the largely unexpected shock caused by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India to assess whether major crises that impact the well-being of a large number of individuals can be catalysts for civic activism. Exploiting state-level variation in COVID-19 peaks and...

This paper focuses on the spatial variation in the uptake of social security benefits following a large and detrimental exogenous shock. Specifically, we focus on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We construct a two-period panel of 66 Territorial...

The federal government enacted massive spending in the Pandemic Recession. But was this spending scaled to the magnitude of the economic downturn? We examine the responsiveness of the safety net to the Pandemic Recession and compare it to that in the Great Recession. Using monthly state-level...

The paper elicits a mechanism by which private leverage choices exhibit strategic complementarities through the reaction of monetary policy. When everyone engages in maturity transformation, authorities have little choice but facilitating refinancing. In turn, refusing to adopt a risky balance...

National safety nets are imbedded in country-specific regulatory cultures that encompass contradictory goals of nationalistic welfare maximization, merciful treatment of distressed institutions, and bureaucratic blame avoidance. Focusing on this goal conflict, this paper develops two hypotheses....

In fighting a financial crisis, opacity (keeping the names of banks borrowing at emergency lending facilities secret) and stigma (the cost of having a bank's name revealed) are desirable to restore confidence. Lending facilities raise the perceived average quality of all banks' assets. Opacity...

We study the distribution of credit during crisis times and its impact on firm indebtedness and macroeconomic risk. Whereas policies can help firms in need of financing, they can lead to adverse selection from riskier firms and higher default risk. We analyze a large-scale program of public...

How are natives' attitudes towards migrants shaped by economic crises? Natives could show more empathy towards migrants as everyone faces a common threat. Alternatively, natives' prejudice could rise as competition for scarce economic opportunities increases. We conduct an online survey to 3,400...

COVID-19 has demonstrated the challenges that policymakers, insurers, businesses, and employees face when disaster assistance programs are developed after the pandemic has already started. There is now an opportunity to design and implement effective and efficient solutions to manage the...

We study the stock market effects of the arrival of the three rounds of "stimulus checks" to U.S. taxpayers and the single round of direct payments to Hong Kong citizens. The first two rounds of U.S. checks appear to have increased retail buying and share prices of retail-dominated portfolios....