Journal Article
COVID-19 and the state
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was wealthier countries with stronger institutions that suffered the highest numbers of cases and fatalities. Many weaker countries were instead praised for more effective pandemic response. What...
Working Paper
Peruvian response to COVID-19 pandemic
Why does a state like Peru, dedicated to fulfilling development goals and sustained good macroeconomic performance, appear incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the case of maternal mortality, this paper argues that the tremendous...
Working Paper
Social distress and (some) relief
Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates...
Working Paper
Physical proximity and occupational employment change by gender during the COVID-19 pandemic
Previous economic downturns such as the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis disproportionately affected male employment due to greater contractions in industries typically filled by men (e.g., manufacturing). However, after the imposition of the ‘hard’...
Working Paper
The pandemic and the state
COVID-19 has brought to the fore the issue of state preparedness in mitigating health emergencies. This paper problematizes the received wisdom of greater state capacity in mitigating the severity of the pandemic. Based on a case study of West Bengal...
Working Paper
Social protection expansions during crisis and fiscal space
This study provides a first attempt to contribute a large-scale assessment of whether crisis response as observed during the COVID-19 pandemic can serve as a feasible blueprint for creating durable solutions across countries. Adopting a lens on...
Journal Article
Life with Corona
Gender differences (GD) in mental health have come under renewed scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic. While rapidly emerging evidence indicates a deterioration of mental health in general, it remains unknown whether the pandemic will have an impact...
Working Paper
Does an effective government lower COVID-19’s health impact?
Government effectiveness has played an important role in tackling the crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper discusses the different aspects of government effectiveness in explaining the variation in the COVID-19 confirmed...
Working Paper
Duterte’s pandemic populism
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic undermined the populist legacy of Philippine president Rodrigo R. Duterte. Despite implementing one of the longest and strictest lockdowns globally, the country has struggled with controlling the pandemic. While...
Working Paper
The COVID-19 pandemic and the state in Bihar
This paper presents a critical analysis of official data related to COVID-19 in Bihar state, India, which points to the manipulation of data for political ends. The ruling party’s claim that the state managed the COVID pandemic brilliantly seems more...
Working Paper
Pandemic precarity and the complicated case of Maharashtra
The state of Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai have been referred to as the epidemic epicentre of India since the time of the plague of 1896 and influenza epidemic of 1918. During the COVID-19 pandemic too, the state experienced the highest cases...
Background Note
COVID-19 and socioeconomic impact in Asia
Several countries have enacted lockdown measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to protect their health systems and reduce the number of mortalities. One of the most extreme national lockdown measures has been taken by the government of India...
Background Note
COVID-19 and socioeconomic impact in Africa
The COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to over 180 countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020. By 31 March the number of confirmed cases had risen to 59, with over 70 per cent...
Working Paper
An assessment of the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on Kenya’s trade
We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Kenya’s foreign trade using quarterly trade data for the period 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. The exploratory analysis shows that growth of Kenya’s merchandise exports remained resilient...
Journal Article
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the poor
We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the livelihoods of the poor in a semi-rural setting in Bangladesh. We use an unusually rich dataset which tracks the economic and financial transactions of sixty poor and very poor individuals and...