About

Learning from the curve is a voluntary and open source research project on COVID-19 and economics. It is a joint initiative of researchers in economics at ECARES, Solvay, ULB. Our mission is:

  • to provide detailed and real-time information and visualizations on COVID-19 and economics for the general public and the press,

  • to serve as a platform for research collaboration on these topics,

  • to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the economic tissue of countries and regions,

  • to provide policy recommendations based on scientific arguments supported by data analytics.

Learning from the curve started as a voluntary effort of faculty and students in empirical economics at ECARES. We are also very grateful for funding from the Special COVID-19 ULB grant. None of this would be possible without either.

We call data from various sources, which are referenced in the respective dashboards and articles. We provide data sources and code on our Github organization. All publicly available data, code and visualizations are free to use under MIT licenses.

If you use any output (data, code or visualizations), please cite www.learningfromthecurve.net and the Learning from the curve team. Contributed articles are copyright protected by the authors.

DISCLAIMER: We are economists with different expertises in networks, welfare, healthcare etc. We are not medical doctors or virologists. Hopefully, we as economists can contribute to thinking about optimal policy decisions, impact on employment and output etc.

Team Members

Glenn Magerman
Team Lead

I am Assistant professor of Economics at [ECARES, ULB]. My research agenda focuses on social and economic networks, firm-to-firm relationships and pricing mechanisms.
Federico Gallina
Team Co-Lead

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at [ECARES, ULB]. My main research interests are in international trade and European policy.
Sofia Amaral-Garcia
Contributor

I am a research fellow at i3health and a visitor at ECARES (ULB). My research focuses on empirical health economics and law & economics, with applications to physician behavior, interactions between doctors and the medical device industry, and medical malpractice.
Jacques Bughin
Contributor

Dr Jacques Bughin, UN consultant, Solvay Business School Free university of Brussels, Portulan Institute and G20Y, former Director McKinsey Global Institute, and senior partner McKinsey & Company
Bruno Carvalho
Contributor

I am a Post-Doc at ECARES, ULB. I am also affiliated to the Economics for Policy Knowledge Centre, at Nova SBE (UNL). My main research interests are related with Political Economy, Fiscal Policy and Public Economics.
Guilhem Cassan
Contributor
Micael Castanheira
Contributor

Micael Castanheira (ECARES, ULB), Ph.D. is a senior research fellow ('Directeur de Recherche') with FNRS, the Belgian National Science Foundation. His main research topics include the political economics of collective decisions, reforms, and the economics of the pharmaceutical industry.
Bram De Rock
Contributor

Bram De Rock is full professor at the ULB and the KU Leuven. He is also director of ECARES. His research focuses on the impact of household decisions on individual well-being. In 2019 he received the Francqui Prize in human sciences.
Mathias Dewatripont
Contributor

Mathias Dewatripont is full professor at the ULB and co-director of I3H. He is also member of the GEES group advising prime minister WIlmès. His research focuses on contract theory and its applications to a variety of topics including recently in health economics. In 1998 he received the Francqui Prize in human sciences.
Stefano Falcone
Contributor

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at ECARES, ULB. I am interested in conflict and inequality from an applied micro perspective.
Alessandro Gallina
Web Dev

Degree in Media Studies and Digital Communication. Developer for the Learning From The Curve project. My favourite quote is: 'When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.'
Victor Ginsburgh
Contributor

Professor em. Université libre de Bruxelles ECARES, Brussels, and CORE, Louvain-la-Neuve.
Fabrizio Leone
Contributor

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at ECARES, ULB. In my research I use theoretical and empirical tools to study multinational enterprises and global value chains.
Ilaria Natali
Contributor

I am a Ph.D. candidate at ECARES and i3health (ULB). My research interests lie at the intersection between Health Economics and Industrial Organization. My research focuses on the socio-economic determinants of drug consumption and on the patients’ and pharmaceutical companies’ responses to national policies aimed at limiting access to certain medications.
Elisa Navarra
Contributor

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at [ECARES, ULB]. My main research interests are in international trade, firm organization, and European policy.
Alberto Palazzolo
Contributor
Marco Pinchetti
Contributor

Marco is a doctoral researcher at ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research focuses on monetary policy models and the effects of central bank communication on the real economy.
Giorgio Pizzuto
Backend Dev

Degree in Computer Science, backend developer for the Learning From The Curve project.
Marc Sangnier
Contributor
Giang Tran
Contributor

PhD candidate in Economics at Maastricht University and ECARES, ULB. My research interests are experimental economics and microeconomic theory.
Vincenzo Verardi
Contributor

Vincenzo Verardi is associate researcher of the FNRS and teaches econometrics at the University of Namur and the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). His reasearch interests are in applied econometrics.
Philip Verwimp
Contributor

Learning from the curve

An open source research project on COVID19 and economics. A collaboration between academics to reach out to policy makers and the general public.

Website design by Alessandro Gallina