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Coronavirus Fiscal Policy In The United States: Lessons From Feminist Political Economy, Katherine A. Moos Oct 2020

Coronavirus Fiscal Policy In The United States: Lessons From Feminist Political Economy, Katherine A. Moos

PERI Working Papers

Using the U.S. fiscal response to Covid-19 in March and April 2020 as a case study, this paper explores the implications that the U.S. coronavirus legislation had on the societal distribution of responsibility for social reproduction among U.S. households, employers, and the U.S. federal government —and its effect on women and racialized minorities. It builds on feminist political economy research that argues that, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, economic crisis and stagnating conditions for workers in the United States had increased the role of households and the U.S. government in social reproduction, relative to the contribution of employers. This paper …


Simulating Covid-19 In A University Environment, P. T. Gressman, Jennifer R. Peck Oct 2020

Simulating Covid-19 In A University Environment, P. T. Gressman, Jennifer R. Peck

Economics Faculty Works

Residential colleges and universities face unique challenges in providing in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Administrators are currently faced with decisions about whether to open during the pandemic and what modifications of their normal operations might be necessary to protect students, faculty and staff. There is little information, however, on what measures are likely to be most effective and whether existing interventions could contain the spread of an outbreak on campus. We develop a full-scale stochastic agent-based model to determine whether in-person instruction could safely continue during the pandemic and evaluate the necessity of various interventions. Simulation results indicate that …


Health And Profit In Student Housing During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Austin Mcneill Brown Aug 2020

Health And Profit In Student Housing During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Austin Mcneill Brown

Population Health Research Brief Series

The decision to reopen some U.S. universities during the current COVID-19 pandemic may be tied to private financial interests in student housing.


A Covid-19 Teaching Example: Pooled Testing With Microsoft Excel, Humberto Barreto Aug 2020

A Covid-19 Teaching Example: Pooled Testing With Microsoft Excel, Humberto Barreto

Economics and Management Faculty publications

This paper uses pooled testing as a teaching example for undergraduate statistics, econometrics, or quantitative methods courses. It offers step-by-step instructions to create an Excel spreadsheet that uses Monte Carlo simulation to find the optimal group size for a given infection rate. A completed version of the spreadsheet, along with readings, questions, and analytical solution is available at tiny.cc/pooledtesting.


Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Covid-19: Evidence From Six Large Cities, Joseph Benitez, Charles J. Courtemanche, Aaron Yelowitz Jul 2020

Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Covid-19: Evidence From Six Large Cities, Joseph Benitez, Charles J. Courtemanche, Aaron Yelowitz

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

As of June 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has led to more than 2.3 million confirmed infections and 121 thousand fatalities in the United States, with starkly different incidence by race and ethnicity. Our study examines racial and ethnic disparities in confirmed COVID-19 cases across six diverse cities – Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, San Diego, and St. Louis – at the ZIP code level (covering 436 “neighborhoods” with a population of 17.7 million). Our analysis links these outcomes to six separate data sources to control for demographics; housing; socioeconomic status; occupation; transportation modes; health care access; long-run opportunity, as …


Calculating Life And Death In A Time Of Covid, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd Jul 2020

Calculating Life And Death In A Time Of Covid, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

The current pandemic makes us feel helpless. We can respond to its predation pragmatically but its silent march through the population promotes dread. Our helplessness undermines our belief in our culture as the source of our self-esteem and felt significance. One response to our experience of helplessness is the omnipotent stance, the idea that we can master the virus, stop it in its tracks, command one another to comply with injunctions and wreak a path of destruction by devastating the economy. Omnipotence promotes magical thinking. In the service of defeating death, we ignore actual suffering; deaths of despair and deaths …


When Crises Happen: Coronavirus And What We Expect For Global Growth, Waqas Adenwala Jun 2020

When Crises Happen: Coronavirus And What We Expect For Global Growth, Waqas Adenwala

Asian Management Insights

An unflinching take on the negative effects on growth from both demand and supply channels.


Shocks To Aggregate Demand And Aggregate Supply In The Midst Of Covid-19, Anna M. Gellerman May 2020

Shocks To Aggregate Demand And Aggregate Supply In The Midst Of Covid-19, Anna M. Gellerman

Publications and Research

COVID-19 sent shockwaves throughout the economy, changing the amounts of goods and services distributed and altering the demand. This article discusses the negative demand shock and adverse supply shock that the U.S. economy faced in 2020, and the policies that the government implemented to reverse these effects.


Shutdown Policies And Worldwide Conflict, Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Nathalie Monnet, Rohit Ticku May 2020

Shutdown Policies And Worldwide Conflict, Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Nathalie Monnet, Rohit Ticku

ESI Working Papers

We provide real-time evidence on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions policies on conflicts globally. We use daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of coronavirus to study how conflict levels vary following shutdown and lockdown policies. We use the staggered implementation of restriction policies across countries to identify their effect on conflict incidence and intensity. Our results show that imposing a nation-wide shutdown reduces the likelihood of daily conflict by around 9 percentage points. The reduction is driven by a drop in the incidence of battles, protests and violence against civilians. Across actors the …


Financing Firms In Hibernation During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tatiana Didier, Federico Huneeus, Mauricio Larrain, Sergio L. Schmukler May 2020

Financing Firms In Hibernation During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tatiana Didier, Federico Huneeus, Mauricio Larrain, Sergio L. Schmukler

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has halted economic activity worldwide, hurting firms and pushing them toward bankruptcy. This paper provides a unified framework to organize the policy debate related to firm financing during the downturn, centered along four main points. First, the economic crisis triggered by the spread of the virus is radically different from past crises, with important consequences for optimal policy responses. Second, to avoid inefficient bankruptcies and long-term detrimental effects, it is important to preserve firms’ relationships with key stakeholders, like workers, suppliers, customers, and creditors. Third, firms can benefit from “hibernating,” using the minimum bare cash necessary …


2020 Cares Act – Financial Supports For Small Business, Marilyn R. Schlake Apr 2020

2020 Cares Act – Financial Supports For Small Business, Marilyn R. Schlake

Cornhusker Economics

Whether a business is impacted by weather-related disasters, road construction or sudden economic downturns, having a plan to mitigate the impacts can be crucial to the immediate and long-term survival of the business. Unforeseen circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may require owners to re-evaluate their business models, cut operating costs and seek outside financial supports – all to keep cash flowing and the business open. To help small businesses during the pandemic, the Coronavirus Aid Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law on March 27. It contains $349 billion in relief for American small businesses and …


Did Social-Distancing Measures In Kentucky Help To Flatten The Covid-19 Curve?, Charles J. Courtemanche, Joseph Garuccio, Anh Le, Joshua C. Pinkston, Aaron Yelowitz Apr 2020

Did Social-Distancing Measures In Kentucky Help To Flatten The Covid-19 Curve?, Charles J. Courtemanche, Joseph Garuccio, Anh Le, Joshua C. Pinkston, Aaron Yelowitz

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

In the absence of a vaccine or more effective treatment options, containing the spread of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) must rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions. All U.S. states adopted social-distancing measures in March and April of 2020, though they varied in both timing and scope. Kentucky began by closing public schools and restaurant dining rooms on March 16th before progressing to closing other non-essential businesses and eventually issuing a “Healthy at Home” order with restrictions similar to the shelter-in-place (SIPO) orders adopted by other states. We aim to quantify the impact of these measures on COVID-19 case growth in the …


No Double Trouble: How To Reopen The Economy., Larry Hirschhorn, Phd Apr 2020

No Double Trouble: How To Reopen The Economy., Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

This policy introduces a measure of choice, consonant with our culture. Those younger than 65 can make their own personal tradeoffs between heath and livelihood, while older people, knowing that the virus will be spreading more quickly through the population will be even more cautious, thus preventing their early deaths. We return decisions to people while ensuring that the sum total of decisions does not overwhelm our hospitals. One felicitous result of this policy is that the virus will spread more quickly through the healthier population. This means that when the elderly re-engage in social life they will encounter fewer …


Call Center Jobs To Mitigate Unemployment And Isolation Problems Amid Coronavirus Crisis In The United States, Pepin Kazadi Apr 2020

Call Center Jobs To Mitigate Unemployment And Isolation Problems Amid Coronavirus Crisis In The United States, Pepin Kazadi

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

The global economy is undoubtfully under threats of the novel coronavirus. Government and local authorities have taken precaution measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. Shutdowns and social distancing restrictions, taken in the context of fighting the spread of the virus, have prompted an unpredicted slowdown of the global economy. In the United States, the economic disruptions due to the pandemic have terribly increased the unemployment level. About 22.034 million of Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since March 21, 2020 (Mutikani, 2020). In addition, working hours have been reduced. Small businesses, such as food and beverage services, hotels, …


Distributed Manufacturing In Dayton: Combating Covid-19 Through Public Service Employment, Joshua Pham, Grayson Thacker Apr 2020

Distributed Manufacturing In Dayton: Combating Covid-19 Through Public Service Employment, Joshua Pham, Grayson Thacker

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

With the decline in manufacturing in the United States following the 1980s, many once thriving cities began to fall into economic stagnation and decline. Dayton, Ohio is one of these cities, experiencing a mass exodus of its central industry, leaving behind a labor force with mismatched skills for the current job environment and a lack of opportunity. Such unemployment has only been exacerbated by the Great Recession and the more recent economic shutdown, stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. To combat this decline and slow march to destitution, this paper proposes the implementation of a public service employment program (PSE) that …


Green Jobs Guarantee, Coronavirus, And Public Sanitation, James Olderham Apr 2020

Green Jobs Guarantee, Coronavirus, And Public Sanitation, James Olderham

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

In recent years, the idea of the Government as an “employer of last resort” (ELR) has gained traction, both in the academic and general public spheres. While the origins of this idea can be traced through several economists, one of the most prominent conceptions of the policy comes from L. Randall Wray in his 1998 book Understanding Modern Money. In this piece, Wray outlines a policy whereby the government would offer meaningful employment to essentially anyone willing and able to work. The purpose would be to effectively solve the problem of involuntary unemployment. By putting this group of people to …


Pandemic Lockdown Must Fail: Save Lives Without Crippling The Economy, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd Mar 2020

Pandemic Lockdown Must Fail: Save Lives Without Crippling The Economy, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

In the following working paper, I want to make a plea for what I am calling a “reverse quarantine”—quarantining people who are over 65 (who number 52 million), before they get sick. We need to complement this policy with federally funded and locally organized efforts to support seniors in place, drawing on the wellsprings of American pragmatism, the capacity to respond in emergencies, American volunteerism, and neighbor-to-neighbor assistance. We can’t turn quarantine into imprisonment. We must work as hard as we can to create a psychological sense of community at a moment when, paradoxically, social distancing is driving us apart. …


Disruptive Effects Of The Coronavirus – Errors Of Commission And Of Omission?, John Pourdehnad, Larry M. Starr, Venard Scott Koerwer, Harry Mccloskey Mar 2020

Disruptive Effects Of The Coronavirus – Errors Of Commission And Of Omission?, John Pourdehnad, Larry M. Starr, Venard Scott Koerwer, Harry Mccloskey

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

It is increasingly evident that the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, is more than a health problem; it is and will continue to adversely affect work and workplaces, education, families and social engagements, political and environmental dimensions, and financial indicators. Apart from its health ramifications, the crisis is revealing serious challenges in the global supply chain. Those difficulties are, at least in part, consequences of unwise, short-sighted business decisions made over the course of decades to outsource and downsize.


Bankruptcy Courts Ill-Prepared For Tsunami Of People Going Broke From Coronavirus Shutdown, Paige Marta Skiba, Dalié Jiménez, Michelle Miller, Pamela Foohey, Sara Sternberg Green Jan 2020

Bankruptcy Courts Ill-Prepared For Tsunami Of People Going Broke From Coronavirus Shutdown, Paige Marta Skiba, Dalié Jiménez, Michelle Miller, Pamela Foohey, Sara Sternberg Green

Economics Faculty Works

As more Americans lose all or part of their incomes and struggle with mounting debts, another crisis looms: a wave of personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy can discharge or erase many types of debts and stop foreclosures, repossessions and wage garnishments. But our research shows the bankruptcy system is difficult to navigate even in normal times, particularly for minorities, the elderly and those in rural areas.