Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) policy evaluates applicants’ health as a binary outcome and creates incentives to exaggerate or even exacerbate one’s health problems to acquire eligibility. This paper is the first to develop and estimate an individual decision-making model that permits the evaluation of the health effects of the changes to SSDI design. Specifically, I focus on the modification that allows partial benefits for the partially disabled. Simulations show this reform can decrease the mortality rate. This decrease varies with age and reaches a maximum of 0.1 p.p for 60-year-olds. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that thanks to the reform, approximately 30,000 Americans will extend their lives by 5 years, about 20,000 Americans — by 15 years, and around 10,000 Americans — by 20 years. This increase in life longevity will come with an increase in the total sum of the benefits and with an increase in labor supply and income taxes. After accounting for increased taxes, the investment required to prolong the life of one person by one year is around $17,000.

This study reveals substantial heterogeneity in how mothers and fathers responded to COVID-19-related school closures in Russia. Employing the correlated random coefficient model with individual fixed effects across a 6-year panel, we find that, on average, school closures did not impact working hours but resulted in decreased employment and increased remote work, with the effect on mothers being notably more pronounced than on fathers. However, the variation in treatment effects is striking across parental, children’s, and household characteristics, and regional conditions. In several subsamples, the employment response of fathers closely mirrors that of mothers, especially among older parents, those with younger pre-school children, and in regions with low unemployment rates. When interacting with two or more different factors, the study unveils a complex within-family production function determining the differential responses of parents under diverse regional, temporal and family circumstances.

Do the benefits of school closure outweigh the costs? This paper analyzes the tradeoff of the consequences of school closure during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze the effect of school closure on children’s health, parents’ health, and parental labor supply. The study uses the Russian household survey linked with the grade-specific daily dataset on regional school closures. We leverage the published dates of survey interviews to exploit within-round variation in schooling disruptions. Specifically, we aggregate daily data on schooling policies to match the timeframe of survey questions. Employing fixed effects models across a 5-year (2017-2021) panel, we find that school closures significantly decrease the probability of children experiencing flu-like symptoms and having other health issues. Parents indirectly benefit from school closure via reduced contagion. On the other hand, school closures significantly disrupted parental labor supply.

In late 2020, Russia initiated mass distribution of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. Despite its effectiveness, which was proven by various studies, and the overwhelming promotion campaign of the vaccine by Russian authorities, Russians demonstrated a remarkable hesitancy to get vaccinated using this vaccine or any other available analogs. Our study focuses on various factors that influence vaccination decisions, including COVID-19 vaccination policies, media coverage of vaccines, public statements of politicians and influencers, and the effects of social connections.

This paper estimates the effects of the pandemic-driven schooling disruptions on educational inequities and losses of human capital in Russia. We compare these effects with both anticipated, but heterogenous school break policies and unanticipated school disruption caused by severe weather, security threats, and other non-COVID-19 events. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Russians faced significant inequality regarding the access to education and learning infrastructure. While Moscow residents enjoy 5G internet, many rural dwellers in Russia do not have any internet access. COVID-19-driven school closures and shifts to online modes of education have considerably exacerbated pre-existing educational inequality with likely long-term consequences. In 2020, total days of in-person learning for grades 1-8 varied by region from 71 to 129 days. Some regional policies mandated virtual schooling for just 8 school days, while others sent schools on-line for 72 school days. In this study, we use the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) which follows children and their parents over time both before and during the pandemic. We link the RLMS-HSE with the unique regional daily tracker of grade-specific (P-11) schooling policies.to examine how various schooling disruptions influence educational inequities. Among outcomes, we investigate the access to preschools, cost of childcare, time spent by parents on schoolwork, school dropout rate, college entry, teenage employment, and others. The heterogeneity of COVID-19-driven inequalities with respect to geography, child’s age, gender, parents’ income and other socio-demographic characteristics of children and their families are also explored.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the economic landscape, presenting new challenges and considerations for saving for old age. This paper examines the impact of the pandemic on retirement savings patterns and financial behaviors, drawing on data from multiple countries. Specifically, we use the Global Findex database. Our findings reveal that the pandemic has generated pervasive shifts in saving behavior. The study explores how COVID-19 affected old age savings through various channels, including lockdowns and other pandemic-related measures, behavioral changes, shifts in beliefs, and alterations in perceived and actual longevity.

This paper uses a novel dataset on COVID-19 restrictions in Russia to estimate the effect of COVID-19 mitigation policies on the composition of Russian households. Specifically, we explore how heterogeneous regional and federal COVID-19-related policies altered the co-residence patterns. Cohabitation decisions of individuals might have been affected by school closures, shifts to virtual schooling, income support programs to families with children and to the elderly, business closures, mobility restrictions, various accommodations, and other COVID-related policies. The timing, duration, and other details of these policies vary drastically region to region. This allows us to choose the proper control and treated regional groups and to identify the magnitude of the effect of these policies on cohabitation patterns. Additionally, we explore the impact of COVID-19 mitigation restrictions on weddings, divorces, and fertility. Stay-at-home orders and restrictions on business have complicated the dating process. Moreover, some regions closed Registry offices for marriages and divorces during the height of the pandemic, while other regions introduced restrictions on the maximum number of wedding guests. The exacerbated uncertainty influenced both union formation and fertility. The consequences of all these changes in household composition on people’s wellbeing are also discussed.