COVID-19 Essays
The Threat of Adolescent Development from Covid-19 in rural Bangladesh
In developing countries with strongly patriarchal norms, the socio-economic opportunities and choices of adolescent girls and young women often lie in a contested area, subject to the influence of both traditional institutions and the modern state and its partners. While…
Better Containment but Less Health Access: How past exposure to health crises affects the Covid-19 response
This paper provides micro evidence for one mechanism behind the dramatically different political responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, namely how an increase in the perceived risk of Covid-19 among individuals stemming from past exposure to similar health crises generates citizen demand for containment measures.
Public trust, policing, and the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from an electoral authoritarian regime
We examine how trust shapes compliance with public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda. We use an endorsement experiment embedded in a mobile phone survey to show that messages from government officials generate more support for public health…
The unequal impact of Covid-19 on different regions: The role of policy, genetic, and cultural factors
One puzzling question that arises in connection with the spread of the virus SARS-CoV2 is why there are so large variations in its incidence (the infection rate) and its lethal consequences (the death-toll) across countries and across regions within countries….
Vulnerable Groups and the COVID-19: The Indian Case
The current unraveling COVID-19 pandemic poses severe challenges not only in the realm of health, but also for economic and social systems around the globe. It can exacerbate longstanding inequities between groups and leave marginalized groups in a vulnerable position;…
Industrial clusters, networks and resilience in the covid-19 shock in China
This paper examines resilience of Chinese firms to the Covid-19 shock, and how it varied with a cluster index (measuring spatial agglomeration of firms in related industries) at the county level. Two data sources are used: entry flows of newly…
How the Zimbabweans pay for the war against Covid-19
In many countries the Covid-19 virus spread from the roving rich to the stationary poor. In South Africa, for instance, the virus seems to have been imported from abroad by travelers from the upper class and was then transferred to…
The Threat to Female Adolescent Development from Covid-19
In developing countries with strongly patriarchal norms, the socio-economic opportunities and choices of adolescent girls and young women often lie in a contested area, subject to the influence of both traditional institutions and the modern state and its partners. While…
The Power of Women’s Collective Action
For decades, women in India have been largely absent from public life and substantially under-represented in political institutions. As a country founded on the ideals of localized democracy, this has meant that the voices of roughly half of the population…
Crime in the time of COVID-19: How Colombian gangs responded to the pandemic
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, scholars and journalists have spread anecdotes of gangs and criminal organizations coming to the aid of citizens, governing in place of the state. They report gang activities that range from enforcing lockdowns to providing goods and…