In the fight against COVID-19, doctors and health workers are testing drugs and treatments whose efficacy has been proven against other illnesses. We take a look at the most prominent ones and the early findings.

We estimate valuations of time using detailed consumer choice data from a large European ride hail platform, where drivers bid on trips and consumers choose between a set of potential rides with different prices and waiting times. We estimate consumer demand as a function of prices and waiting times. While demand is responsive to both, price elasticities are on average four times higher than waiting-time elasticities. We show how these estimates can be mapped into values of time that vary by place, person, and time of day. Regarding variation within a day, the value of time during non-work hours is 16% lower than during work hours. Regarding the spatial dimension, our value of time measures are highly correlated both with real estate prices and urban GPS travel flows. A variance decomposition reveals that most of the substantial heterogeneity in the value of time is explained by individual differences as opposed to place or time of day. In contrast with other studies that focus on long run choices we do not find evidence of spatial sorting. We apply our measures to quantify the opportunity cost of traffic congestion in Prague, which we estimate at $483,000 per day.

We study the trade-offs faced by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that serve as platforms through which consumers access both television and internet services. As online streaming video improves, these providers may respond by attempting to steer consumers away from streaming video toward their own TV services, or by attempting to capture surplus from this improved internet content. We augment the standard mixed bundling model to demonstrate the trade-offs the ISP faces when dealing with streaming video, and we show how these trade-offs change with the pricing options available to the ISP. Next, we use unique household-level panel data and the introduction of usage-based pricing (UBP) in a subset of markets to measure consumers' responses and to evaluate quantitatively the ISP's trade-offs. We find that the introduction of UBP led consumers to upgrade their internet service plans and lower overall internet usage. Our findings suggest that while steering consumers towards TV services is possible, it is likely costly for the ISP and therefore unlikely to be profitable. This is especially true if the ISP can offer rich pricing menus that allow it to capture some of the surplus generated by a better internet service. The results suggest that policies like UBP can increase ISPs' incentive to maintain open access to new internet content.

Levine is making the rounds to make the case for baseball in the time of the coronavirus pandemic.

Innovation policy involves trading off monopoly output and pricing in the short run in exchange for incentives for firms to develop new products in the future. While existing research demonstrates that expected profits fuel R&D investments, little is known about the novelty of the projects funded by these investments. Relying on data that describe the scientific approaches used by a large sample of experimental drug projects, we expand on this literature by examining the scientific novelty of pharmaceutical R&D investments following the creation of the Medicare Part D program. We find little evidence that the positive demand shock implied by this program prompted firms to undertake scientifically novel R&D activity, as measured by whether the specific scientific approach had been used before. However, we find some evidence that firms invested in products involving novel combinations of scientific approaches. These estimates can inform economists and policymakers assessing the tradeoffs associated with marginal changes in commercial returns from newly developed pharmaceutical products.

This paper investigates the effect of a large negative agricultural shock, the boll weevil, on black-white inequality in the first half of the twentieth century. To do this we use complete count census data to generate a linked sample of fathers and their sons. We find that the boll weevil induced enormous labor market and social disruption as more than half of black and white fathers moved to other counties following the arrival of the weevil. The shock impacted black and white sons differently. We compare sons whose fathers initially resided in the same county and find that white sons born after the boll weevil had similar wages and schooling outcomes to white sons born prior to its arrival. In contrast, black sons born after the boll weevil had significantly higher wages and years of schooling, narrowing the black-white wage and schooling gaps. This decrease appears to have been driven by relative improvements in early life conditions and access to schooling both for sons of black fathers that migrated out of the South and sons of black fathers that stayed in the South.

We use longitudinal data from the income tax system to study the impacts of firms’ employment and wage-setting policies on the level and change in immigrant-native wage differences in Canada. We focus on immigrants who arrived in the early 2000s, distinguishing between those with and without a college degree from two broad groups of countries – the U.S., the U.K. and Northern Europe, and the rest of the world. Consistent with a growing literature based on the two-way fixed effects model of Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis (1999), we find that firm-specific wage premiums explain a significant share of earnings inequality in Canada and contribute to the average earnings gap between immigrants and natives. In the decade after receiving permanent status, earnings of immigrants rise relative to those of natives. Compositional effects due to selective outmigration and changing participation play no role in this gain. About one-sixth is attributable to movements up the job ladder to employers that offer higher pay premiums for all groups, with particularly large gains for immigrants from the “rest of the world” countries.

Traveling beyond the immediate surroundings of one’s residence can lead to greater exposure to new ideas and information, jobs, and greater transmission of disease. In this paper, we document the geographic mobility of individuals in the U.S., and how this mobility varies across U.S. cities, regions, and income classes. Using geolocation data for ~1.7 million smartphone users over a 10-month period, we compute different measures of mobility, including the total distance traveled, the median daily distance traveled, the maximum distance traveled from one’s home, and the number of unique haunts visited. We find large differences across cities and income groups. For example, people in New York travel 38% fewer total kilometers and visit 14% fewer block-sized areas than people in Atlanta. And, individuals in the bottom income quartile travel 12% less overall and visit 13% fewer total locations than the top income quartile.

Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to group performance. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their group to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals “team players”. Team players score significantly higher on a well-established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education and gender. Social skills – defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect – improve group performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.

Vitor Constâncio spent eight years as the vice president of the European Central Bank. In an interview, he explains why not him or outgoing ECB head Mario Draghi are to blame for negative interest rates in the eurozone.

Greed, envy, poor leadership and a poisonous internal culture: New York Times journalist David Enrich has written a book about Deutsche Bank that also sheds light on the financial institution's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Freelancers and small companies are getting hit especially hard by the corona crisis. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the federal government is planning a massive financial aid package. It would mark the end of Germany’s balanced budget policy.

Meat is going the way of toilet paper, and grocery stores are rushing to stay ahead of panic buying as supplies tighten during the coronavirus pandemic. Just as scared shoppers snapped up hand sanitizer, soap and yes, toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, now they are rushing to stock meat. Grocery chains across the country have begun limiting meat purchases in response to the dual pressures.

De Niro, 76, also voiced his support for Joe Biden as a presidential candidate on "The Late Show," and was critical of President Trump’s handling of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

A member of the U.S. Navy who serves as one of President Trump’s personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus.

Californians venturing onto the beach after a month of lockdown are being greeted with the ethereal sight of bioluminescent waves from an algae bloom.

He’ll need a better defense than the one his favorite team managed against LSU last year.

McDonald’s knows exactly where its beef is. The fast food chain’s CEO on Thursday expressed full confidence in the burger joint’s meat supply.

An extensive search was launched Thursday for a teenager who allegedly stabbed his younger brother to death in the Florida Keys community of Islamorada, authorities said.

Officers killed three civilians in three separate incidents within hours of each other.

Pete Davidson, who recently said he quit using drugs, urged people not to drop off any weed or other illegal substances at his mom’s Staten Island house after a stranger did just that a few days ago.

The semen of men infected with coronavirus revealed that the disease lingered in only a few patients, suggesting there is a small chance COVID-19 can be transmitted sexually, researchers said.

President Trump on Friday called the viral video of Ahmaud Arbery’s killing “very, very disturbing,” but he said he’s confident that Georgia’s law enforcement authorities will handle the case properly despite a slow-moving investigation and conflict-of-interest questions surrounding the incident. “So I saw the tape, and it’s very, very disturbing," he said in a Fox New phone interview. “I looked at a picture of that young man. He was in a tuxedo... And I will say that that looks like a really good, young guy.”

Chris Cornell’s widow is firing back at her husband’s Soundgarden bandmates, calling the lawsuit they filed against her Wednesday an attempt to “browbeat” her into giving up “copyrighted works.”

How should those now working from home due to the coronavirus deal with guilt and exhaustion?

A week packed with US economic data is likely to provide investors with more evidence of the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has hit growth, sharpening the debate on whether a rebound in stocks has been justified amid an unprecedented slowdown.