We evaluate the quartile ranking of countries during the Covid-19 pandemic using both official (i.e., confirmed) and excess mortality data. Contrasting countries' rankings using these two data sources reveal sharp and systematic differences. While higher GDP per capita is associated with a worse...

Recent observations on countries like the UK that have accumulated a large fraction of inoculated individuals suggest that, although initially, vaccines have little effect on new infections they strongly reduce the share of mortality out of a given pool of infections. This paper examines the...

We evaluate quartile rankings of countries during the Covid-19 pandemic using both official (confirmed) and excess mortality data. By December 2021, the quartile rankings of three-fifths of the countries differ when ranked by excess vs. official mortality. Countries that are ‘doing...

Key factors in modeling a pandemic and guiding policy-making include mortality rates associated with infections; the ability of government policies, medical systems, and society to adapt to the changing dynamics of a pandemic; and institutional and demographic characteristics affecting citizens'...

This case study compares the importance of prevailing market factors against that of COVID-19 dynamics and policy responses in explaining the evolution of Eurozone (EZ) sovereign spreads during the first half of 2020. Focusing on daily Eurozone CDS spreads, we adopt a multi-stage econometric...