From 2019 to early 2023, the share of job postings offering remote work for one or more days per week rose more than three-fold in the United States and by a factor of five or more in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

This work sheds new light on the underrepresentation of minority and poor households in scientific studies; analysis of a recent COVID-19 serological study suggests that hesitancy to participate is key.

Without additional action we should expect to lose an average of at least $800 billion every year to future pandemics. Investing to expand vaccine production so that we could vaccinate 70% of the global population against a new virus within six months would cost $60 billion up front and $5 billion a year and generate an expected net present value of over $400 billion. If the US went it alone it would generate $47 billion in net benefits or $141 per head, just from the first significant pandemic.

More than 10 percent of Americans with recent work experience will continue social distancing after the COVID-19 pandemic ends, and another 46 percent will do so in limited ways, with older persons, women, the less educated, lower wage earners, and “face-to-face” workers more inclined to social distance.

Based on surveys in 27 countries, this work finds that the pandemic catalyzed a shift to work from home (WFH) around the world, concentrated among college-educated workers. Workers value the option to WFH 2-3 days a week at five percent of pay, on average. Employer plans for WFH levels after the pandemic rise with individual-level productivity in WFH mode and with the cumulative stringency of government-mandated pandemic lockdowns during the pandemic.

Main Street uncertainty aligned with Wall Street in reaction to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and over the ensuing two years; also, uncertainty remains quite elevated as of March 2022, though down significantly since the spring of 2020.

Most of the amount, timing, and composition of the 240,000 deaths involving alcohol and drugs since early 2020 can be explained by income effects and category-specific price changes.

Economic policy uncertainty in US states rises around gubernatorial and presidential elections, as well as around state-specific and national events; also, the COVID-19 pandemic drove huge increases in policy uncertainty and unemployment, more so in states with stricter government-mandated lockdowns.