Krishna Dasaratha studies how behavioral responses impact on the spread of a contagious disease like Covid-19. The results challenge some of the conventional wisdom such as that infection rates stop growing due to behavioral responses in combination with herd immunity.
“Optimal Management of an Epidemic”
Carlos Garriga, Rody Manuelli and Siddhartha Sanghi study a dynamic macro model to capture the trade-off between policies that simultaneously decrease output and the rate of infection transmission. Findings suggest that, in many cases, optimal policies require sharp initial decreases in employment followed by a partial liberalization that occurs before the peak of the epidemic. The study also discusses the impact of the arrival of a vaccine and its changing value as the epidemic progresses.
Six-Country Survey on Covid-19
This paper presents a new data set collected on representative samples across 6 countries: China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, the UK and the four largest states in the US. The information collected relates to work and living situations, income, behavior (such as social-distancing, hand-washing and wearing a face mask), beliefs about the Covid 19 pandemic and exposure to the virus, socio-demographic characteristics and pre-pandemic health characteristics. (The data can be accessed here.)
Recommended citation: Michèle Belot, Syngjoo Choi, Julian C. Jamison, Nicholas W. Papageorge, Egon Tripodi, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Six-Country Survey on Covid-19, on: Covid-19 Research Conduit (May 2020), URL: http://www.covid-19-research-conduit.org/2020/05/06/six-country-survey-on-covid-19/.
The recent PSPP Decision of the German Constitutional Court
Miguel Poiares Maduro with a preliminary analysis of the Court’s judgement and its potential implications for the ECB and the EU’s financial assistance in mitigating the Covid-19 crisis.
Macroeconomic consequences of stay-at-home policies
Studying the macroeconomic impact of lockdown measures, Neha Bairoliya and Ayse Imrohoroglu find that mitigation efforts targeted towards certain age and health groups result in significantly smaller economic disruptions compared to an indiscriminate lockdown.
US Foot traffic data available
SafeGraph had made its aggregated foot traffic data available for free to help combat the spread of COVID-19. Data includes foot traffic on every commercial place in the U.S. and Canada and also foot traffic within census block groups. You can access the data by filling out a form here.
“From extinguishing an epidemic to managing it”
Combining epidemiology with economic models, Simon Loertscher and Ellen V. Muir determine the minimum degree of lockdown that assures that the maximum capacity of the health care system is not exceeded while a certain amount of social and economic liberty is preserved.
Bloomberg reports …
… on a study co-produced by the EUI’s Arnout van de Rijt: The article discusses the team’s findings on how to flatten a second, post-lockdown peak of infections. Applying network theory, they suggest that a strict prevention of long-distance transmissions of the contagion can limit its spread considerably.
Tracker of trackers: Policy responses and data
This collection lists studies and projects that track policy responses to COVID-19 as well as data sets.
More about pandemics
The latest instalment of Andrea Galeotti and Paolo Surico’s video explainer.