Pandemic containment and inequality in a developing economy

Kunal Dasgupta and Srinivasan Murali

Economic Inquiry, 2024, vol. 62, issue 2, 837-864

Abstract: Using individual‐level panel data from India, we show that income inequality between high‐skilled and low‐skilled workers increased following COVID‐19 lockdown. Integrating a susceptible, infected, recovered, dead epidemiological model into a general equilibrium framework with high‐skilled and low‐skilled workers, working either from their offices (onsite) or from their homes (remote), we can explain between 24 and 59 percent of the observed increase in inequality. We also find that disease incidence is higher among low‐skilled workers as they choose to work more onsite compared to their high‐skilled counterparts. Direct transfers for low‐skilled workers reverses this increase in inequality and improves the effectiveness of containment policies.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13190

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:bla:ecinqu:v:62:y:2024:i:2:p:837-864

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... s.aspx?ref=1465-7295

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Tim Salmon

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().