The Causal Effects of Lockdown Policies on Health and Macroeconomic Outcomes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Arias, Jonas E.; Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus; Rubio-Ramirez, Juan F.; Shin, Minchul
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania; Emory University; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Atlanta
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20210367
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 287-319
• 关键词: inference; identification; restrictions; sign

摘要

We assess the causal impact of pandemic-induced lockdowns on health and macroeconomic outcomes and measure the trade-off between containing the spread of a pandemic and economic activity. To do so, we estimate an epidemiological model with time-varying parameters and use its output as information for estimating SVARs and LPs that quantify the causal effects of nonpharmaceutical policy interventions. We apply our approach to Belgian data for the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020. We find that additional government-mandated mobility curtailments would have reduced deaths at a very small cost in terms of GDP.