JUE Insight: College student travel contributed to local COVID-19 spread.

Due to the suspension of in-person classes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, students at universities with earlier spring breaks traveled and returned to campus while those with later spring breaks largely did not. We use variation in academic calendars to study how travel affected the evolution of COVID-19 cases and mortality. Estimates imply that counties with more early spring break students had a higher growth rate of cases than counties with fewer early spring break students. The increase in case growth rates peaked two weeks after spring break. Effects are larger for universities with students more likely to travel through airports, to New York City, and to popular Florida destinations. Consistent with secondary spread to more vulnerable populations, we find a delayed increase in mortality growth rates. Lastly, we present evidence that viral infection transmission due to college student travel also occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The relationship between in-person voting and COVID-19: Evidence from the Wisconsin primary.

On April 7, 2020, Wisconsin held its presidential primary election, and news reports showed long lines of voters due to fewer polling locations. We use county-level variation in voting patterns and weekly county-level COVID test data to examine whether in-person voting increased COVID-19 cases. We find a statistically significant association between in-person voting density and the spread of COVID-19 2-3 weeks after the election. In our main results, a 10% increase in in-person voters per polling location is associated with an 18.4% increase in the COVID-19 positive test rate 2-3 weeks later.

Economic conditions and sleep.

This paper uses the American Time Use Survey from 2003 to 2015 to analyze the effect of economic conditions on sleep duration. Prior work has found that increases in the employment rate cause sleep duration of individuals to fall. No previous research considers that weekday sleep behavior and weekend sleep behavior may be differentially related to economic conditions. Estimates suggest that weekday sleep duration is indeed countercylical whereas weekend sleep duration is procyclical. Results are driven by individuals most susceptible to economic fluctuations: minorities, single adults, and individuals with less education. Differential results concerning economic conditions and sleep by day type may be one mechanism for which to expect economic conditions to impact other sleep-related outcomes diversely depending on day of the week.