COVID-19 and implications for automation. NBER Working Paper 27249. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
This report finds that the automation of jobs may be accelerated if employers invest in technology to avoid the effects of COVID-19 and potential future pandemics on their production processes. Using information from the O*NET database, the authors identify local U.S. labour markets and demographic groups that are more vulnerable to automation due to higher…Read More
The impact of COVID-19 on small business owners: Continued losses and the partial rebound in May 2020. NBER Working Paper 27462. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
In April 2020, 22% of small business owners in the United States were inactive. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the author demonstrates a partial rebound in May 2020. From April’s low of 22%, the number of active business owners climbed by 7% to 15%. Overall, African-American business owners continue to be the…Read More
The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown. IZA Discussion Paper 13500. Bonn, Germany: IZA Institute of Labor Economics.
This paper uses a sample of parents in England living in two-parent opposite-gender families and examines the gendered division of paid and domestic work. Before the pandemic, women were less likely than men to be in paid work and were more likely to spend more time doing housework and childcare. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic,…Read More
Short-term effect of COVID-19 on self-employed workers in Canada. Canadian Public Policy, 46(S1), S66–S81.
This paper studies the short-term effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed individuals in Canada — those interpreted as small business owners, who may never recover from the crisis. The paper uses the Labour Force Survey to document a 14.8% and 10.1% drop in business ownership for incorporated and unincorporated entities, respectively, between February and…Read More
How did COVID-19 and stabilization policies affect spending and employment? A new real-time economic tracker based on private sector data. Cambridge, MA: Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, Harvard Kennedy School.
In this paper, the authors address the challenges faced by policymakers during the COVID-19 pandemic by building a freely accessible platform. The platform tracks economic activity at a granular level in real time using anonymized data from private US companies. Specifically, the report includes weekly statistics on consumer spending, business revenues, employment rates and other…Read More
Preserving job matches during the COVID-19 pandemic: Firm-level evidence on the role of government aid. COVID Economics: Vetted and Real-Time Papers, 27, 1–30. London, UK: Centre for Economic Policy and Research.
This paper looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firms taking up government aid. Using a sample of Danish firms, the authors found that the most common type of aid package included support for furloughed workers and delays in tax payments. In general, firms receiving aid report more temporary and fewer permanent layoffs…Read More
10 ways the COVID-19 pandemic must change work for good. Vancouver, BC: Centre for Future Work/Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
This paper identifies ten changes that will allow society to rebuild after the pandemic: 1) guaranteeing proper health and safety practices and equipment in workplaces; 2) reconfiguring the relationships of workplaces; 3) providing adequate paid sick leave and other income security; 4) ensuring that work from home occurs in a fair, safe, sustainable manner; 5)…Read More
A literature review of the economics of COVID-19. IZA Discussion Paper 13411. Bonn, Germany: IZA Institute of Labor Economics.
This survey investigates the emerging literature on the economic consequences of COVID-19 and the resulting government responses. The authors focus on labour, health, gender, discrimination and environmental consequences as well as discussing measures of social distancing and various policy proposals.Read More
Working remotely and the supply-side impact of COVID-19. NBER Working Paper 27330. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), the authors constructed a “COVID-19 work exposure” index to capture supply-side disruptions associated with the pandemic across sectors, firms and workers. This index, measuring differences in the capacity to work remotely, reveals that exposure varies significantly by sector. Exposure is low for software publishers, since most…Read More
Initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Canadian labour market. Spring–Summer 2020, Working Paper 26. Waterloo, ON: Canadian Labour Economics Forum.
The COVID-19 pandemic has induced sharp declines in economic activity, unprecedented in recorded economic history. Data from the Labour Force Survey show a 32% drop in aggregate weekly hours worked between February and April 2020 for workers aged 20–64, as well as a 15% drop in employment for the same group. In addition, almost half…Read More