Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a major source of concern has been its effect on mental health. Using pre-pandemic information and five customized questionnaires in the Dutch LISS panel, we investigate how mental health in the working population has evolved along with the most...

We examine the revenue and redistributive effects of tax policy reforms in twelve European countries over the decade between the financial crisis and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, setting them against the implications of a hypothetical system reflecting the extent of fiscal drag...

In response to strong revenue and income losses that a large share of the self-employed faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the German federal government introduced a 50bn emergency aid program. Based on real-time online-survey data comprising more than 20,000 observations, we analyze the impact...

It has been found that migrants and natives are affected differently by fluctuations in the business cycle. This paper analyses whether this is the case when considering the most recent economic downturn triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. By using UK data, it finds that unemployment has...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many governments to implement lockdowns. While lockdowns may help to contain the spread of the virus, they may result in substantial damage to population well-being. We use Google Trends data to test whether the lockdowns implemented in Europe and America led to...

What is the response of US governors to the COVID-19 pandemic? In this research note, we explore the determinants of implementing stay-at-home orders, focusing on governors' characteristics. In our most conservative estimate, being a Democratic governor increases the probability of implementing...

This paper presents a new data set collected on representative samples across 6 countries: China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, the UK and the four largest states in the US. The information collected relates to work and living situations, income, behavior (such as social-distancing, hand-washing...

Around the world, governments have been asking their citizens to practice physical distancing and stay at home to contain the spread of Covid-19. Are happier people more willing to comply with these measures? Using three independent surveys covering over 119,000 adult respondents across 35...

When South Africa implemented its non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) (its "lockdown") to stem the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, it was hailed as exemplary. By June 2020 however, the lockdown was in disarray: the number of confirmed infections continued to grow exponentially, placing the...