Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

8-2022

Abstract

In lower-income countries, the economic contractions that accompany lockdowns to contain COVID-19 transmission can increase child mortality, counteracting the mortality reductions achieved by the lockdown. To formalize and quantify this effect, we build a macro-susceptible-infected-recovered model that features heterogeneous agents and a country-group-specific relationship between economic downturns and child mortality and calibrate it to data for 85 countries across all income levels. We find that in some low-income countries, a lockdown can produce net increases in mortality. The optimal lockdown that maximizes the present value of aggregate social welfare is shorter and milder in poorer countries than in rich ones.

Keywords

COVID-19, child mortality, lockdown, SIR-macro

Discipline

Economics | Health Economics | Public Health

Research Areas

Macroeconomics

Publication

International Economic Review

Volume

63

Issue

3

First Page

1427

Last Page

1468

ISSN

0020-6598

Identifier

10.1111/iere.12574

Publisher

Wiley

Copyright Owner and License

Publisher

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12574

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