We examine the short-term impact of COVID-19 on consumption spending and its underlying mechanisms, using individual-level monthly panel data from Singapore. Although Singapore's case-fatality rate is one of the lowest in the world (0.05%), we find that the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the...

Importance: The outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID–19) has challenged the capacity of healthcare systems around the world and can potentially compromise healthcare utilization and health outcomes among non-COVID–19 patients. However, the empirical evidence regarding changes in...

Despite unambiguous predictions of the canonical model of a competitive labor market, empirical studies on the labor market effects of payroll taxation provide conflicting evidence. Our meta-analysis shows that varying degrees of labor market competitiveness across places and time could be one...

We study the effects of lottery winning on consumption spending using newly available household survey data in Singapore. We find strong consumption responses to a transitory income shock via lottery wins. Lottery winners spend about half of their prizes within 12 months of winning. We show that...

We report evidence of long-term adverse health impacts of in utero exposure to malnutrition based on survivors in their 50s who were born during the China Famine that occurred in the years 1959-1961. We take advantage of recently available data provided by the China Health and Retirement...

Incentives are essential to promote labor productivity. We implemented a two-stage field experiment to measure effects of career and wage incentives on productivity through self-selection and causal effect channels. First, workers were hired with either career or wage incentives. After...