Research Hub: Coronavirus

The School of Economics Coronavirus Research Hub brings together our academic community’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. It features research and policy recommendations to tackle the unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19 on societies and economies across the world. It also includes commentary and analysis pieces intended to help students and non-specialists use insights from economics to make sense of the current crisis.

• The gender division of childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic
  Head of Economics, Professor Sarah Smith, and co-author Almudena Sevilla, Professor of Economics at UCL, share their research on childcare responsibilities during lockdown.
• The impact of COVID-19 on education
  Professor of Economics, Simon Burgess, and Senior Lecturer Hans Sievertsen discuss schools, skills and learning, and the impact COVID-19 could have.
• COVID-19 crisis response monitoring
  Dr Patrick Arni outlines the impact COVID-19 is having on the labour market in Switzerland, in a contribution to a cross-country evidence hub.
• The COVID-19 crisis and Educational Inequality
  Professor Simon Burgess and Professor Anna Vignoles, University of Cambridge, share their research on educational inequality.
• What does a university education look like without traditional lectures?
  School of Economics academics Professor Alvin Birdi, Dr Christian Spielmann, and Dr Steven Proud contribute to the comparison of online and face-face university education, highlighting the innovations in HE.
• Balancing the Risks of Pupils Returning to Schools
  Professor Simon Burgess co-led the authoring of a DELVE Royal Society report on schools and Covid-19.
• The Income and Consumption Effects of Covid-19 and the Role of Public Policy
  School of Economics lecturer Dr Peter Spittal and Dr Suphanit Piyapromdee (University College London) present a working paper exploring income and consumption effects of Covid-19 and the role of public policy.

• What does COVID-19 mean for our economy?
  Professor Sarah Smith hosted an expert panel of alumni and academics discussing the effects of Covid-19 on our economy, and what businesses and organisations are doing to adapt to the pandemic.
• The local economic impacts of Covid-19
  Professor Helen Simpson joins the Royal Economic Society panel to discuss UK Policy responses to local economic impacts of COVID-19.
• The Inequalities of Lockdown
  Professor Simon Burgess contributes to a BBC Radio 4 documentary examining which jobs have been lost, whose health is more at risk and whose education is most likely to suffer. And which asks if the lockdown will increase inequality? And if it does, how might a government reverse that trend once normal life is resumed?