Covid-19 in low-income countries

Faculty engagement

EGC affiliates are conducting a range of research and communications activities to address the crisis.

• Kevin Donovan worked with colleagues Wyatt Brooks of Arizona State University and Jackline Oluoch-Aridi and Terence Johnson of University of Notre Dame to deliver cash transfers to women running micro-enterprises in Dandora, a large slum in Nairobi, Kenya. The team updated the data every two weeks and observed the impact of cash transfers during and after the economic downturn. A new EGC Discussion Paper shows that payments helped stabilize recipients economically, but may have worked against public health goals.
• Penny Goldberg is working on appropriate public health policy responses to the Covid-19 crisis for developing countries. She is organizing data collection to facilitate analysis of short- and medium-term impacts of the crisis on those employed in the informal sector in these countries, particularly women. Her latest research finds some reasons to be optimistic, for now, about Covid-19 in emerging markets and developing economies – both on health and economic fronts.
• Mushfiq Mobarak, working through Y-Rise, is collaborating with IPA and the Government of Bangladesh to rapidly generate an evidence-based policy response to help contain the health and economic devastation of the pandemic. This team is producing guidelines, survey instruments and other resources useful for gathering data and formulating a response in other developing countries.
• Rohini Pande and Charity Troyer Moore (Yale MacMillan Center) are working to collect and analyze information on how the Covid-related lockdown in India and Nepal is affecting those countries' poorest citizens, in particular poor women, to help ensure that policymakers responsible for mitigating the effects of lockdown can effectively target those most in need. To read more about their work in response to Covid and its impact in the region, and to access resources for researchers, click here.
• Fabrizio Zilibotti is working with colleagues Francesco Agostinelli of the University of Pennsylvania, Matthias Doepke of Northwestern University, Giuseppe Sorrenti of the University of Amsterdam to study the effects of school closures and loss of peer-to-peer interaction on students from low- and high-income families. Their working paper finds that students from poor neighborhoods have suffered when it comes to forming new skills, while students from rich neighborhoods have remained on track. 

Below you can access Covid-related content produced by researchers at EGC and across Yale. Our Twitter feed features additional insights on addressing the pandemic in developing countries. Please contact us with any content you feel is important to share.

Covid-related output by EGC researchers

• Research to guide policy
• Videos & Webinars
• Articles by EGC affiliates