National Bureau of Economic Research
Coronavirus Pandemic Research
COVID-19 Mortality Lower in Higher-Ranked Nursing Homes
Nursing home residents account for more than 35 percent of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States. NBER Research Associate William Evans and Christopher Cronin, both of the University of Notre Dame, report substantial differences across nursing homes in the mortality rate from the virus. Their new working paper (28012) finds that facilities that achieved a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported substantially lower COVID-19 death rates than lower-ranked nursing homes. This differential was largely offset, however, by increased rates of non-COVID-19 mortality in highly ranked nursing homes. Evans describes these results in the video below. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related topics may be found here.
Seven NBER working papers distributed this week investigate the COVID-19 pandemic, its economic effects, and the public health and economic responses to it. One study analyzes the relationship between nursing home quality and the number of COVID-19 deaths (28012). A second examines the impact of the pandemic on educational attainment (28022), while a third assesses the economic returns to a regime of expanded virus testing (28031). One study estimates the effects of the Paycheck Protection Program on employment and firm survival (28032), while another considers the potential impact of credit market policies during the pandemic in light of experiences during the Great Recession (28039). One paper finds that political polarization has not increased during the pandemic (28036); another develops a new algorithm, using monthly data, for forecasting country-level economic growth, and describes potential applications in designing pandemic response policies (28014).
More than 290 NBER working papers have presented pandemic-related research. These papers are open access and have been collected for easy reference. Like all NBER papers, they are circulated for discussion and comment, and have not been peer-reviewed. They may be viewed in reverse chronological order or by topic area.
From the Bulletin on Health
...a free summary of recent NBER Working Papers on health topics, distributed three times a year
![w27760](/web/20201105201845im_/https://www.nber.org/sites/default/files/styles/listing_large_image/public/2020-10/w27760.jpg?itok=eFYtVASi)
From the NBER Digest
...a free monthly publication of non-technical summaries of research on topics of broad public interest
![w27734.jpg](/web/20201105201845im_/https://www.nber.org/sites/default/files/styles/listing_large_image/public/2020-10/w27734_0.jpg?itok=tWsq85xV)
From the NBER Reporter
...a presentation of the 2020 Martin S. Feldstein Lecture
![20203figure1](/web/20201105201845im_/https://www.nber.org/sites/default/files/styles/listing_large_image/public/2020-10/20203figure1.jpg?itok=FPK_BS74)
New Officers, Directors, and Affiliates Named
At its meeting in September, the NBER Board of Directors elected John Lipsky chair and Peter Blair Henry vice chair of the NBER. Four new directors joined the board and 44 researchers were named NBER research associates or faculty research fellows research associates.
From the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability
...a free quarterly summarizing research in the NBER's Retirement and Disability Research Center
![w27534.jpg](/web/20201105201845im_/https://www.nber.org/sites/default/files/styles/homepage_feature_small/public/2020-09/w27534.jpg?itok=02YxArP8)
Featured Working Papers
The rate at which US PhDs in science and engineering start new firms has declined precipitously since 1997, which Thomas Astebro, Serguey Braguinsky, and Yuheng Ding link to a long-term earnings decline by founders, to greater work complexity in R&D, and to more administrative work.
Essential workers comprise a large share of the labor force and tend to mirror its characteristics, while the narrower category of frontline workers is, on average, less educated, has lower wages, and has more men, disadvantaged minorities, and immigrants, Francine D. Blau, Josefine Koebe, and Pamela A. Meyerhofer find
In a study of the growth of Chinese firms over the 1992-2014 period, Davin Chor, Kalina Manova, and Zhihong Yu find that as firms expand, they tend to cover more stages of production, raising both demand for inputs and value added in production.
Segregation of the civil service under President Woodrow Wilson increased the Black wage penalty by 7 percentage points, largely as a result of reallocation of already-serving Black employees to lower-paid positions, according to a study by Abhay Aneja, and Guo Xu
Kristin Forbes, Ida Hjortsoe, and Tsvetelina Nenova find that exchange rate movements are more likely to be passed through to prices when these movements are the result of shocks to monetary policy than when they are the result of shocks to aggregate demand.
In the News
Recent citations of NBER research in the media
_______________________________________
Research Projects
Conferences
Books & Chapters
Through a partnership with the University of Chicago Press, the NBER publishes the proceedings of four annual conferences as well as other research studies associated with NBER-based research projects.
![NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2019](/web/20201105201845im_/https://www.nber.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_cover/public/2020-10/MAv34n1_cover.jpg?itok=ZabQbfFa)