Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, small-firm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on accounting identities and actual...

Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, small-firm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on accounting identities and actual...

Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, small firm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on accounting identities and actual...

Using Bogota’s system of socioeconomic division, the “strata”, we show that falling ill with a serious case of COVID has been over eight times more likely for an individual in the lowest stratum, where the poorer population concentrates, compared to one in the highest. Other pieces of...

Bogota is unique in recording and reporting the socioeconomic status of COVID-19 patients. As others in Latin America and Asia, the city imposed a blanket lockdown before contagion picked up in early 2020 and kept it in place for six months. We document that, during that period, being...