A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lock-down, Testing, and Tracing

Fernando Alvarez, David Argente and Francesco Lippi

American Economic Review: Insights, 2021, vol. 3, issue 3, 367-82

Abstract: We study the optimal lock-down for a planner who controls the fatalities of COVID-19 while minimizing the output costs of the lock-down. The policy prescribes a severe lock-down beginning a few weeks after the outbreak, covering almost 50 percent of the population after a month, with a total duration shy of 4 months. The intensity of the optimal lock-down depends on the gradient of the fatality rate with respect to the infected and the availability of antibody testing, which yields a welfare gain of 2 percent of GDP. We also study test-tracing-quarantine, which we show to be complementary to lock-down.

JEL-codes: E23 I12 I15 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (105)

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DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20200201

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