Covid Economics, Vetted and Real-Time Papers, from CEPR, brings together formal investigations on the economic issues emanating from the Covid outbreak, based on explicit theory and/or empirical evidence, to improve the knowledge base.

We analyze the impact of ideology on the size of government. In a simple model the government sets redistribution and provision of public services according to the preferences of the median voter. Ideology is defined in terms of preferences for public services and the impact of ideology upon the size of government is shown to increase with mean income. This idea is tested using measures of ideology based on party manifestos. We show that the interaction of ideology and mean income has a major role in explaining the increase and divergence in government size observed across OECD countries.

This paper reconsiders Persson and Tabellini's (2003,2004) analysis of the causal effect of constitution type on government size, it addresses the concerns of Acemoglu(2005) and makes some further refinements to argue that there is a qualitatively large, and statistically significant relationship between constitution type and government size. The age of a democracy is of increased importance in the new identification strategy, but existing measures are shown to be flawed. Two new measures of the age of a democracy are introduced. The first details when a country first had a genuinely democratic election, the second when its current constitution was promulgated. * james.rockey@le.ac.uk., I thank Jonathan Temple for many helpful discussions and Simon Johnson, Torsten Persson, and Stefan Voigt for making their datasets available. The usual disclaimer applies.

ObjectivesThis study examined patterns of sexual violence against adults and children in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform sexual violence prevention, protection, and response efforts.DesignA prospective cross-sectional research design was used with data collected from March to August 2020.SettingKenya.Participants317 adults, 224 children.Main measuresPerpetrator and survivor demographic data, characteristics of the assault.ResultsBivariate analyses found that children were more likely than adults to be attacked during daytime (59% vs 44%, p<0.001) by a single perpetrator rather than multiple perpetrators (31% vs 13%, p<0.001) in a private as opposed to a public location (66% vs 45%, p<0.001) and by someone known to the child (76% vs 58%, p<0.001). Children were violated most often by neighbours (29%) and family members (20%), whereas adults were equally likely to be attacked by strangers (41%) and persons known to them (59%). These variables were entered as predictors into a logistic regression model that significantly predicted the age group of the survivor, χ2(5, n=541)=53.3, p<0.001.ConclusionsPatterns of sexual violence against adult and child survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic are different, suggesting age-related measures are needed in national emergency plans to adequately address sexual violence during the pandemic and for future humanitarian crises.

This article discusses the latest research that reveals that children seem to be facing new risks of sexual violence in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic. The evidence suggests there have been changes in patterns of sexual offenses against children coincident with lockdowns, curfews, and school closures. In particular, emerging evidence from Kenya suggests that child victims are younger, more likely to be victimized by a neighbor in a private residence, and in the daytime, compared to pre-pandemic. We conclude that situational crime prevention strategies that focus on providing alternative safe venues to reduce offending opportunities must be a central part of a public health approach to reduce children's vulnerability during crises such as COVID-19.