Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
12-2021
Abstract
We estimate the economic impact of South Korea's targeted responses to the first large-scale COVID-19 cluster in Seoul. We find that foot traffic and retail sales decreased only within a 300 meter radius of the cluster and recovered to its pre-outbreak level after four weeks. The reductions appear to be driven by temporary business closures rather than the risk avoidance behavior of the citizens. Our results imply that less intense, but more targeted COVID-19 interventions, such as pin-pointed, temporary closures of businesses, can be a low-cost alternative after lifting strict social distancing measures.
Keywords
COVID-19, pandemic, information disclosure, risk avoidance, foot traffic, retail sales, cell phone signal data, card transaction data
Discipline
Asian Studies | Behavioral Economics | Public Health
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
Publication
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume
192
First Page
199
Last Page
221
ISSN
0167-2681
Publisher
Elsevier
City or Country
Bonn
Citation
KIM; KOH, Kanghyock; and SHIN, Jinwook.
Economic impact of targeted government responses to COVID-19: Evidence from the large-scale cluster in Seoul. (2021). Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 192, 199-221.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2442
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.