Labour Market Shocks and Parental Investments during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

This paper studies spill-over effects of parental labour market shocks at two time points in the Covid-19 crisis: right after its onset in April 2020, and in January 2021. We use rich data from the UK to look at the consequences of immediate and persistent shocks that hit parents' economic livelihoods. These negative labour market shocks have substantially larger impacts when suffered by fathers than by mothers. Children of fathers that suffered the most severe shocks - earnings dropping to zero - are the ones that are consistently impacted. In April 2020, they were 10 percentage points less likely to have received additional paid learning resources, but their fathers were spending about 30 more minutes per day helping them with school work. However, by January 2021, this latter association switches sign, as the negative spill-over onto children's education occurred for those fathers facing more persistent, negative labour market shocks as the crisis progressed. The paper discusses potential mechanisms driving these results, finding a sustained deterioration of household finances and a worsening of father's mental health to be factors at play.

Short-run economic effects of the Scottish smoking ban.

BACKGROUND: We estimated the short-run economic impacts of the Scottish smoking ban on public houses. Previous findings on the effect of smoking bans on the hospitality sector have mainly focused on the United States. These studies have mostly found no negative economic effects of such legislation on the hospitality sector in the long run. However, differences in the social use of public houses in Great Britain in comparison with the United States may lead to different findings. METHODS: We used a quasi-experimental research design that compared the sales and number of customers in public houses located in Scotland before and after the Scottish smoking ban was introduced, relative to a control group of establishments across the English border where no ban was imposed. To perform this analysis, we collected data on 2724 pubs, 1590 in Scotland and 1134 in Northern England by phone interviews using quota sampling. RESULTS: We found that the Scottish ban led to a 10% decrease in sales [P = 0.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) -19% to -2%] and a 14% decrease in customers (P = 0.02, 95% CI -26% to -2%). CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that the Scottish smoking ban had a negative economic impact on public houses, at least in the short run, due in part to a drop in the number of customers.

The UK Resilience Programme: a school-based universal nonrandomized pragmatic controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an 18-hr cognitive behavioral group intervention in reducing depressive symptoms (and associated outcomes) in a universal sample of students in mainstream schools in England. The intervention, the UK Resilience Programme (UKRP), was based on the Penn Resiliency Program for Children and Adolescents. METHOD: Students (N = 2,844; 49% female; 67% White) were ages 11-12 at 16 schools. Classes of students were assigned arbitrarily into intervention (UKRP) or control (usual school provision) conditions based on class timetables. Outcome measures were the Children's Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1992) (depressive symptoms, primary outcome); Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (C. R. Reynolds & Richmond, 1985) (anxiety); and child-reported Goodman (1997) Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (behavior). Students were surveyed at baseline, postintervention, 1-year follow-up, and 2-year follow-up. RESULTS: At postintervention, UKRP students reported lower levels of depressive symptoms than control group students, but the effect was small (d = 0.093, 95% CI [-0.178, -0.007], p = .034) and did not persist to 1-year or 2-year follow-ups. There was no significant impact on symptoms of anxiety or behavior at any point. CONCLUSIONS: UKRP produced small, short-term impacts on depression symptoms and did not reduce anxiety or behavioral problems. These findings suggest that interventions may produce reduced impacts when rolled out and taught by regular school staff. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy and for future dissemination efforts.