Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment

Christian Moser and Pierre Yared

No 27062, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper studies lockdown policy in a dynamic economy without government commitment. Lockdown imposes a cap on labor supply, which improves health prospects at the cost of economic output. A government would like to commit to the extent of future lockdowns in order to guarantee an economic outlook that supports efficient levels of investment into intermediate inputs. However, such a commitment is not credible since investments are sunk at the time when the government chooses a lockdown. As a result, lockdown under lack of commitment deviates from the optimal policy. Rules that limit a government’s lockdown discretion can improve social welfare, even in the presence of noncontractible information. Quantitatively, lack of commitment causes lockdown to be significantly more severe than is socially optimal. The output loss due to lack of commitment is greater for higher social discount rates, higher values of life, higher disease transmission rates, higher intermediate input shares, and longer vaccine arrival times.

JEL-codes: E61 H12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-mac
Note: EFG EH POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Published as Christian Moser & Pierre Yared, 2021. "Pandemic lockdown: The role of government commitment," Review of Economic Dynamics, .

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Related works:
Journal Article: Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment (2022)
Working Paper: Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment (2021)
Working Paper: Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment (2020)
Working Paper: Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment (2020)
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