Could the United States benefit from a lockdown? A cost-benefit analysis

Anna Scherbina
Additional contact information
Anna Scherbina: American Enterprise Institute

AEI Economics Working Papers from American Enterprise Institute

Abstract: Although COVID-19 vaccines are finally available, the rate at which they are administered is slow, and in the meantime the pandemic continues to claim about as many lives every day as the 9/11 tragedy. I estimate that with the promised rate of vaccinations, if no additional nonpharmaceutical interventions are implemented, 406 thousand additional lives will be lost and the future cost of the pandemic will reach $2.4 trillion, or 11% of GDP. Using a cost-benefit analysis, I assess whether it is optimal for the United States to follow the lead of many European countries and introduce a nation-wide lockdown. I find that a lockdown would be indeed optimal and, depending on the assumptions, it should last between two and four weeks and will generate a net benefit of up to $1.2 trillion.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Gross Domestic Product (GDP); US Economy; US Labor Market; Vaccines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aei.org/research-products/working-pape ... st-benefit-analysis/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aei:rpaper:1008589856

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in AEI Economics Working Papers from American Enterprise Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dave Adams, CIO ().