ABSTRACT
We analyze a large-scale survey of small business owners, managers, and employees in the United States to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on those businesses. We explore two waves of the survey that were fielded on Facebook in April 2020 and December 2020. We document five facts about the impact of the pandemic on small businesses. (1) Larger firms, older firms, and male-owned firms were more likely to remain open during the early stages of the pandemic with many of these heterogeneities persisting through the end of 2020. (2) At businesses that remained open, concerns about demand shocks outweighed concerns about supply shocks though the relative importance of supply shocks grew over time. (3) In response to the pandemic, almost a quarter of the firms reduced their prices with price reductions concentrated among businesses facing financial constraints and demand shocks;almost no firms raised prices. (4) Only a quarter of small businesses had access to formal sources of financing at the start of the pandemic, and access to formal financing affected how firms responded to the pandemic. (5) Increased household responsibilities affected the ability of managers and employees to focus on their work, whereas increased business responsibilities impacted their ability to take care of their household members. This effect persisted through December 2020 and was particularly strong for women and parents of school-aged children. We discuss how these facts inform our understanding of the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they can help design policy responses to similar shocks. © 2022 INFORMS.
ABSTRACT
Governments have taken various countermeasures to slow down the effect of the Covid-19 virus, which has affected the whole world since the beginning of 2020. This study aims to evaluate the impacts of the countermeasures taken by the government on travel behavior in Istanbul, Turkey, through a large-scale survey (approx. 150.000 respondents), remote traffic microwave sensor (RTMS) and transit system electronic toll collection (ECT) data. The countermeasures have been taken by the governments were all day on weekends and between 9 pm and 5 am on weekdays, closure of the restaurants, cafes except take away, stepwise working hour measure and determination of the working hour between 10 am and 4 pm. The survey was developed to allow electronic surveys to be designed on a word processor, sent to, and conducted on standard entry level mobile phones. As a result of the survey, it is estimated that there is a 9% increase in the use of private vehicles, and the road traffic congestion is expected to be increased accordingly. Despite the stepwise working hour measure of the government, the morning and evening peak hours of the traffic did not change. Also, the number of vehicles before and during the pandemic passing through the Bosporus via two bridges which connect the two continents and are the main transportation corridor of Istanbul, is analyzed. According to the November, 2020 data, the number of the vehicles has decreased by almost 14% on weekdays in comparison with the data of November, 2019 for both bridges. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
To examine the online teaching attitudes of university teachers and the influencing factors during the Covid-19 pandemic, this study conducted a large-scale survey (N=1090) on university teachers in 16 provinces in China. A series of Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric tests were performed to determine the impact of teacher demographic characteristics on their online teaching attitudes. The results revealed that most teachers had positive opinions of online instruction with several perceived benefits, but also recognized the challenges and disadvantages to teach online. The differences in age, educational background, professional titles and prior online teaching experience significantly affected teachers' attitudes towards online teaching. The study concluded with several implication for preparing university teachers for online instruction in the post-pandemic world. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers in many countries have increasingly adopted online grocery shopping. This study aims to investigate the demographic and household characteristics of these adopters, by analyzing the data from a large-scale survey (n=2568) in Finland. The results indicate that a typical adopter of online grocery shopping due to Covid-19 is less than 45 years old, and one with some concern over own health or that of a loved one. The more likely adopters also have a higher household size, higher household earnings, and/or they are more likely to live in the capital region of the country. Further, the results indicate that in the older age group (45+), women and those with some degree of worry over own health and/or that of a loved one are a little more likely to be adopters than the rest. © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.