Data Gaps and the Policy Response to the Novel Coronavirus

James Stock

No 26902, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This note lays out the basic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) epidemiological model of contagion, with a target audience of economists who want a framework for understanding the effects of social distancing and containment policies on the evolution of contagion and interactions with the economy. A key parameter, the asymptomatic rate (the fraction of the infected that are not tested under current guidelines), is not well estimated in the literature because tests for the coronavirus have been targeted at the sick and vulnerable, however it could be estimated by random sampling of the population. In this simple model, different policies that yield the same transmission rate β have the same health outcomes but can have very different economic costs. Thus, one way to frame the economics of shutdown policy is as finding the most efficient policies to achieve a given β, then determining the path of β that trades off the economic cost against the cost of excess lives lost by overwhelming the health care system.

JEL-codes: E60 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-mac
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (159)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26902.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:26902

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26902

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().