Background Note

Several countries have enacted lockdown measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to protect their health systems and reduce the number of mortalities. One of the most extreme national lockdown measures has been taken by the government of India...

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Lockdown

Blog

by Arkebe Oqubay April 2020

The response to Africa’s COVID-19 plight must be swift and at scale rather than too little, too late. In a world short of progressive global...

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Economic Policy and Good Governance

Background Note

The COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to over 180 countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020. By 31 March the number of confirmed cases had risen to 59, with over 70 per cent...

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Africa

Working Paper

We study how the stringency of policy measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic affects individuals’ trust in formal institutions. Drawing on micro-level panel data from Germany spanning an 18-month period from the onset of the pandemic, we show that...

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Crisis

Book Chapter

Part of Book COVID-19 and the Informal Economy

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• informal employment

Working Paper

The COVID-19 pandemic increased public debt and changed the income distribution in many countries. We use a numerical simulation approach to derive optimal nonlinear marginal tax rates for the pre-crisis and crisis periods. We contribute to the...

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Optimal tax

Journal Article

This study examines the trajectory of global income inequality since 1981. Commonly used (relative) definitions indicate a decline in global inequality since the late 1980s. Looking ahead, it has been intuited that the influence of China's economic...

• Global inequality
• COVID-19
• Pandemic

Working Paper

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Kenya’s foreign trade using quarterly trade data for the period 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. The exploratory analysis shows that growth of Kenya’s merchandise exports remained resilient...

• Trade
• Kenya
• Exports

Journal Article

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the livelihoods of the poor in a semi-rural setting in Bangladesh. We use an unusually rich dataset which tracks the economic and financial transactions of sixty poor and very poor individuals and...

• COVID-19
• Lockdown
• Livelihoods

Journal Article

A large body of literature exists on the role of institutions in combating corruption and its influence on economic development. However, there is a paucity of literature on the inter-relationships between economic and political crises, institutions...

• Corruption
• Institutions
• Crisis

Journal Article

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was wealthier countries with stronger institutions that suffered the highest numbers of cases and fatalities. Many weaker countries were instead praised for more effective pandemic response. What...

• COVID-19
• the state
• Pandemic

Book

• Pandemic
• COVID-19
• socioeconomic consequences

Blog

The influenza pandemic of 1918 (the Spanish Flu) is by far the greatest humanitarian disaster caused by an infectious disease in modern history. It...

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Spanish flu

Working Paper

Why does a state like Peru, dedicated to fulfilling development goals and sustained good macroeconomic performance, appear incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the case of maternal mortality, this paper argues that the tremendous...

• Maternal mortality
• Targeting
• COVID-19

Working Paper

Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates...

• COVID-19
• Poverty
• Labour market