Having pivoted to a focus on COVID-19-related research in early March 2020, VoxEU.org readership has risen about 2.5 times compared to last year. As Figure 1 shows, in the last week of April 2020 the number of users was 189,000, compared to 71,000 for the same period in 2019. The number of page views in the same week was 354,000 (compared to 127,000 in 2109). The monthly figures are equally impressive. For April 2020, VoxEU.org had 1.6 million pageviews from 767,000 users.
Figure 1 VoxEU users and pageviews, 1 January 2020 to 30 April 2020 compared to 2019
Source: Google Analytics
The two early eBooks on COVID-19
Data from Google Analytics suggest that the turning point was the publication of the first Covid-related eBook, Economics in the Time of COVID-19, edited by CEPR President Beatrice Weder di Mauro and I. It was posted on the site on 6 March 2020.
Data from Google Analytics suggest that the turning point was the publication of the first Covid-related eBook, Economics in the Time of COVID-19, edited by CEPR President Beatrice Weder di Mauro and I. It was posted on the site on 6 March 2020.
That eBook included chapters by leading economists who had already realised the severity and uniqueness of this crisis and had started marshalling their experience and specialised knowledge to help prepare decisionmakers for the enormous changes that subsequently appeared in the following months. Figure 2 shows the table of contents. The eBook, which is free, has been downloaded 41,000 times from VoxEU.org directly.
Figure 2 The first COVID-19 eBook
Source: https://voxeu.org/content/economics-time-covid-19
The second eBook, which Beatrice and also I co-edited, came just two weeks later. By that time, the profession was most definitely ‘awoke’. The chapters were written by some of the world most eminent policy economists, including Paul Krugman, Penny Goldberg, Gita Gopinath, Olivier Blanchard, Laurence Boone, Jason Furman, Nora Lustig, Adam Posen, Philip Lane, Thorsten Beck, Alberto Alesina Francesco Giavazzi, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Danny Quah, Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, Ramon Marimon, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Lucrezia Reichlin, Luis Garicano, Peter Bofinger, Gabriel Felbermayr, Clemens Fuest, Shang-Jin Wei, Jordi Gali, and many more.
This eBook has been downloaded 51,000 times as of 7 May 2020.
References
Baldwin, R and B Weder di Mauro (2020b), Mitigating the COVID economic crisis: Act fast and do whatever it takes, a VoxEU.org eBook, CEPR Press.
Baldwin, R and B Weder Mauro (2020a), Economics in the Time of COVID-19, a VoxEU.org eBook, CEPR Press.