I - Health, Education, and Welfare

• COVID-19, Containment and Consumption

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-5 Tatjana Dahlhaus, Daniel Hyun, Antoine Poulin-Moore, Jaime Trujillo, Saarah Sheikh, Benjamin Straus

  We assess the impact of COVID-19 on consumption indicators by estimating the effects of government-mandated containment measures and of the willingness of individuals to voluntarily physically distance to prevent contagion.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Domestic demand and components JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, D, D1, D12, E, E6, E65, I, I1, I18

• The Geography of Pandemic Containment

  Staff Working Paper 2021-26 Elisa Giannone, Nuno Paixao, Xinle Pang

  Interconnectedness between US states has affected the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. We study the optimal containment policies regulating the movement of goods and people within and between states.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Economic models, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): F, F1, H, H0, I, I1, R, R1

• COVID-19 and Implications for Automation

  Staff Working Paper 2021-25 Alex Chernoff, Casey Warman

  Occupations held by females with mid-level education face the highest risk of accelerated automation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): I, I1, I14, I2, I24, J, J1, J15, J16, R, R1, R12

• Labor Demand Response to Labor Supply Incentives: Lessons from the German Mini-Job Reform

  Staff Working Paper 2021-15 Gabriela Galassi

  How do firms change their employment decisions when tax benefits for low-earning workers are expanded? Some firms increase employment overall, whereas others replace high-earning workers with low-earning workers, according to German linked employer-employee data.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Firm dynamics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E6, E64, H, H2, H20, H24, H3, H32, I, I3, I38, J, J2, J23, J3, J38

• The Bank of Canada COVID‑19 stringency index: measuring policy response across provinces

  Staff Analytical Note 2021-1 Calista Cheung, Jerome Lyons, Bethany Madsen, Sarah Miller, Saarah Sheikh

  We construct an index that systematically measures and tracks the stringency of government policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across Canadian provinces. Researchers can use this stringency index to analyze how the pandemic is affecting the economy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Domestic demand and components, Recent economic and financial developments, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E20, H, H7, I, I1, I18, R, R1

• A Macroeconomic Model of an Epidemic with Silent Transmission and Endogenous Self-isolation

  Staff Working Paper 2020-50 Antonio Diez de los Rios

  We study the interaction between epidemics and economic decisions in a model that has silent transmission of the virus. We find that rational behaviour strongly diminishes the severity of the epidemic but worsens the economic recession. We also find that the detection and isolation of not only symptomatic individuals but also those who are infected and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic can reduce the severity of the recession caused by the pandemic.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E1, H, H0, I, I1

• Cyclicality of Schooling: New Evidence from Unobserved Components Models

  Staff Working Paper 2020-38 Barbara Sadaba, Sunčica Vujič, Sofia Maier

  What is the time-varying impact of economic cycles on decisions to invest in human capital?

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, I, I2, J, J2

• Inequality in Parental Transfers, Borrowing Constraints and Optimal Higher Education Subsidies

  Staff Working Paper 2019-7 Youngmin Park

  This paper studies optimal education subsidies when parental transfers are unequally distributed across students and cannot be publicly observed. After documenting substantial inequality in parental transfers among US college students with similar family resources, I examine its implications for how the education subsidy should vary with schooling level and family resources to minimize inefficiencies generated by borrowing constraints.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, D6, D61, D64, D8, D82, I, I2, I22, J, J2, J24

• Identification of Random Resource Shares in Collective Households Without Preference Similarity Restrictions

  Staff Working Paper 2017-45 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Arthur Lewbel, Krishna Pendakur

  Resource shares, defined as the fraction of total household spending going to each person in a household, are important for assessing individual material well-being, inequality and poverty. They are difficult to identify because consumption is measured typically at the household level, and many goods are jointly consumed, so that individual-level consumption in multi-person households is not directly observed.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C31, D, D1, D11, D12, D13, I, I3, I32

• Sheltered Income: Estimating Income Under-Reporting in Canada, 1998 and 2004

  Staff Working Paper 2015-22 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Chunling Fu

  We use data from the Survey of Financial Security and the Survey of Household Spending to estimate the incidence and extent of income under-reporting in Canada in 1998 and 2004. We estimate that the proportion of households under-reporting income is roughly 35 to 50 per cent in both years.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components JEL Code(s): H, H2, H26, I, I3, I32, K, K4, K42