Are COVID-19 spread and mortality related to different countries’ government mobility restriction policies, democratic institutions, and cultural norms? Leveraging data from 140 countries, we find that policy, institutions, and vulnerabilities interact to determine pandemic spread and mortality. A delay in restricting international mobility increases pandemic mortality. Combining vulnerabilities with a delay in domestic mobility restrictions increases mortality.

This paper uses data from an employee tracking survey in China for about 6000 incumbent workers to document their dynamic labor market outcomes throughout the year 2020. I find that the employment situation worsened sharply during the lockdown period and then recovered gradually, showing a “V” shaped pattern. However, by the end of November 2020, about 4.4 per cent of 2019 incumbent workers were still unemployed, with few social protections.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects on virtually all facets of society. With the enforcement of COVID-19 control measures such as lockdown and stay-at-home orders in Nigeria, palpable concerns about human rights violations by state actors, especially the security agencies, emerged. Unfortunately, conceptualizing and structuring responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as a human rights issue has remained inadequate, and very little research exists on the possible effects of pandemic containment policies on the human rights of informal workers in Nigerian cities.

This study tests the stability of environmental preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) values using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) across three countries pre and post the peak of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.