We study the optimal lock-down for a planner who controls the fatalities of COVID-19 while minimizing the output costs of the lockdown. The policy prescribes a severe lock-down beginning a few weeks after the outbreak, covering almost 50 percent of the population after a month, with a total duration shy of 4 months. The intensity of the optimal lock-down depends on the gradient of the fatality rate with respect to the infected and the availability of antibody testing, which yields a welfare gain of 2 percent of GDP. We also study test-tracing-quarantine, which we show to be complementary to lock-down.

A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lock-down, Testing, and Tracing / Alvarez, Fernando; Argente, David; Lippi, Francesco. - In: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW. INSIGHTS. - ISSN 2640-2068. - 3:3(2021), pp. 367-382. [10.1257/aeri.20200201]

A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lock-down, Testing, and Tracing

Lippi, Francesco
2021

Abstract

We study the optimal lock-down for a planner who controls the fatalities of COVID-19 while minimizing the output costs of the lockdown. The policy prescribes a severe lock-down beginning a few weeks after the outbreak, covering almost 50 percent of the population after a month, with a total duration shy of 4 months. The intensity of the optimal lock-down depends on the gradient of the fatality rate with respect to the infected and the availability of antibody testing, which yields a welfare gain of 2 percent of GDP. We also study test-tracing-quarantine, which we show to be complementary to lock-down.
2021
A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lock-down, Testing, and Tracing / Alvarez, Fernando; Argente, David; Lippi, Francesco. - In: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW. INSIGHTS. - ISSN 2640-2068. - 3:3(2021), pp. 367-382. [10.1257/aeri.20200201]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11385/211663
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