This paper investigates the impact of different survey administration methods on the disclosure of sensitive or traumatic experiences. Respondents of a pilot study in Ethiopia were randomly assigned to answer questions either using audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) or as part of a face-to-face (FtF) enumerator-based interview. Results indicate that ACASI led to higher disclosure rates of conflict-related experiences, particularly for the most sensitive questions, i.e., when either the respondent or a close friend or family member was the victim, or when the trauma suffered was more severe. ACASI offers a viable solution to measure traumatic conflict-related experience exposure in low-literacy settings, overcoming the underestimation problem commonly observed when using standard survey methods.

Data from 3,555 Chinese listed firms show that firms in cities with greater clan strength faced smaller losses and swifter recovery following COVID-19. Clans were significantly related to individual values facilitating pandemic prevention; these ties guaranteed economic activities and sheltered firms from the shock. Our results frame social capital as a complementarity to formal institutions during crises.

We examine the impact of framing on individuals' risk-taking behavior in the context of health risks during the coronavirus outbreak. We elicit risk attitudes from a sample of 3,385 individuals across seven European countries using an incentivized decision-making task. Participants are randomly assigned to one of three versions of the task: one involving the risk of a bomb explosion, one involving the risk of contracting an infectious disease, and one involving opening an empty box. We find that the framing of the task significantly affects risk-taking behavior, with participants exhibiting greater risk aversion in the health task than in the bomb or neutral task. This framing effect is observed in the majority of the countries studied.

We provide stylized facts on the short-run resilience of exports to the COVID-19 pandemic across product characteristics. Relying on global monthly product-level exports to the United States, Japan, and 27 European Union countries from January 2018 to December 2021, we show that products with a higher reliance on China or few countries as input suppliers saw stronger declines in exports as a result of the COVID-19 shock while those with more automated production processes saw exports increase. Our analysis also shows that product characteristics played different roles mediating export responses at different stages of the 2020-2021 COVID-19 crisis. We document rapid reductions in vulnerabilities for exports of unskilled-intensive production. Reliance on diversified inputs from abroad progressively contributed to resilience following an initial negative role when trade was severely disrupted globally.

We develop a simple model of vaccine prioritization for a potential pandemic. We illustrate how the model applies to the case of Covid-19, using an early 2020 primitive estimate of occupation-based exposure risks and age-based infection fatality rates. Even based on primitive estimates the vaccine distribution strongly emphasizes age-based mortality risk rather than occupation-based exposure risk. Among others, our result suggests that 50-year-old food-processing workers and 60-year-old financial advisors should have been equally prioritized. We also find that the priorities minimally change when certain populations' exposure risks are altered by targeted stay-at-home orders or call-up of essential workers.

This study explores the role of COVID-19 in the connectedness between green and conventional bonds. The findings document spillovers from conventional to green bonds. The results imply that the new green bond market cannot be ignored during a stressful period.

This study investigates the relationship between political connections and firm financial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we found that politically connected enterprises paid more taxes, employed more employees, and suffered financial performance. This study enriches the literature on the impact of COVID-19 on enterprises and provides suggestions for regulators.

We provide evidence on the unprecedented rate at which firms suspended dividend payments and share repurchases following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, compare it to the Global Financial Crisis, and estimate the amount of cash firms saved through payout suspensions.

This study investigates the dynamics of corporate cash holdings. We argue that firms in industries with low remote work feasibility have more incentives to hold cash during COVID-19 because of a precautionary saving motive or to retain their employees. The analysis results consistently show that firms less able to transition to remote work maintain higher cash holdings during COVID-19, and, more importantly, this effect is stronger for firms with more employees. Furthermore, we find that a higher share of female workers is associated more strongly with high levels of cash holdings for firms with low remote work capacity during COVID-19.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries used export and import policy as a tool to expand the availability of scarce critical medical products in the domestic market (scarcity nationalism). This paper assesses the direct and indirect (via trade in intermediates) increases in trade costs of critical medical goods resulting from these uncooperative policies. The results show that scarcity nationalism led to substantial increases in trade costs between February 2020 and December 2021 for most COVID-19 critical medical products, particularly garments (for example, face masks) and ventilators. The exception is vaccines, which saw a reduction in trade costs, which, however, was driven by the reduction in indirect trade costs for high-income countries, consistent with the view of a COVID-19 vaccine production club.

The paper studies the selection into the widespread job retention support that was provided during the Covid-19 pandemic and the employment effects of it, using firm-level administrative data for Estonia that cover the whole population of firms in 2019-2020. The endogeneity of the support is addressed by creating a control group from firms that were as severely hit as those that received the support and by using matching techniques. It is found that there was no selection of firms into the support by productivity once the sample is restricted to firms that experienced similar adverse conditions. The support had a positive effect on employment, as about one job in five that was supported by the scheme was saved and the unemployment rate would have been 2-4 percentage points higher in 2020 without the support.

We analyze the potential role of equity injections in addressing solvency risks among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) after the COVID-19 crisis. Building on firm-level balance sheet projections for a sample of European economies, we simulate selected policy interventions and find that equity injections are quite effective at dampening the rise in insolvencies. Cost effectiveness requires careful targeting, however; under an illustrative scenario, leaving aside any costs arising from imperfect information and implementation, the cost of a program targeting only those SMEs worth saving is just a tenth of the cost of an untargeted approach directed to all insolvent firms. Overall, our paper provides a case for governments to rely more on targeted equity injections in responding to major shocks that trigger mass solvency risks.

This study investigates whether green supply chain management (GSCM) practices help companies to be resilient against the buffer effect in the context of COVID-19. Building on the instrumental version of stakeholder theory, companies implementing GSCM practices should build environmental skills and competitive advantage to cope with a crisis caused by supply chain disruptions. Our survival analysis, conducted on 5,696 firms headquartered in 35 countries, shows clear evidence that GSCM companies' market prices recover quickly from the shock. Considering mounting pressure on environmental issues, this study documents the new benefits of GSCM for companies confronted with a global financial shock. By applying a large sample, the study has originality and implications for stakeholders, including investors, governments, and policymakers, to push firms to become more eco-friendly and resilient.

This study extends the earlier literature on changes in school enrollment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by using data for the second COVID-19 school year (2021-2022) from the state of New York. Contrary to expectations that the resumption of fully-live instruction would reverse the first COVID-19 year's declines in public school enrollment, we find that enrollment continued to drop sharply in the second COVID-19 school year, when schools were entirely back to in-person learning. These declines in enrollment vary substantially by grade, race and poverty and are robust to controlling for other COVID-19 related factors. In addition, we find mixed results for the number of private school students but significant increases in home-schooled students in the two COVID-19 years. The findings have important educational and fiscal implications.

The spread of COVID-19 increased general interest in the effects of pandemics on stock markets. We believe it is interesting to analyze emerging countries due to their role in future economies. The announcement of the H1N1 and COVID-19 pandemics instigated observable effects on the stock market. Our goal is to measure and compare the effects of these announcements, specifically for the BRIC bloc, using the event study method. We find evidence that these stock markets exhibited more negative abnormal returns at the announcement of COVID-19 than at the announcement of H1N1. However, Russia and China seem to cope better with COVID-19, having already experienced H1N1. Due to the possibility of a new pandemic and for the sake of the future participation of emerging countries, it is recommended to deepen this line of research.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on international trade varies along several dimensions, including the type of product, the size of firm and over time. In this note, I provide evidence of systematic variation in the trade response to the pandemic along another, previously unexplored dimension, the mode of transportation. Analyzing daily data from New Zealand, I find that the value of seaborne exports and imports increases relative to shipments by air during pandemic lockdowns. While this finding is consistent with many explanations, including the sensitivity of trade to external finance, it generally provides support for the importance of frictions on the supply side.

Using Chinese data, this study examines the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on tendencies and characteristics of information disclosure. Results show that, due to uncertainty caused by the pandemic, it is difficult to make earnings forecasts. Further, during the pandemic, forecast precision and timeliness decrease. The results remain unchanged under difference-in-difference (DiD) estimation. The findings of this paper extend existing studies on the economic consequences of COVID-19 pandemic and the influencing factors of information disclosure, providing implications for corporate managers, investors, and regulators.

This paper investigates the Chinese stock market reactions to the announcements of Covid-19 vaccine approvals. These announcements generally impacted stock prices, but the impacts appeared to be heterogeneous across sectors. Particularly, firms in the manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and information technology sectors were persistently benefited. We also find that firms with poorer performance, smaller sizes, and greater ages reacted more positively compared to others.

Using data from the UK, we show that girls have been affected more than boys by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing. These gender differences are more pronounced in lower-income families. Our results are consistent with previous findings of larger pandemic effects on mental health of women.

Based on China's anti-epidemic bond data, this paper investigates stock market reactions to the anti-epidemic bond issuance announcements during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that anti-epidemic bond issuance significantly increases the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) compared with conventional bond issuance.

We exploit the unique design of a repeated survey experiment among students in four countries to explore the stability of risk preferences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Relative to a baseline before the pandemic, we find that self-assessed willingness to take risks decreased while the willingness to take risks in an incentivized lottery task increased, for the same sample of respondents. These findings suggest domain specificity of preferences that is partly reflected in the different measures.