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The Causal Effects of Lockdown Policies on Health and Macroeconomic Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Jonas E. Arias
  • Jesús Fernández- Villaverde
  • Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez
  • Minchul Shin

Abstract

We assess the causal impact of pandemic-induced lockdowns on health and macroeconomic outcomes and measure the trade-off between containing the spread of a pandemic and economic activity. To do so, we estimate an epidemiological model with time-varying parameters and use its output as information for estimating SVARs and LPs that quantify the causal effects of nonpharmaceutical policy interventions. We apply our approach to Belgian data for the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020. We find that additional government-mandated mobility curtailments would have reduced deaths at a very small cost in terms of GDP.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonas E. Arias & Jesús Fernández- Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Minchul Shin, 2023. "The Causal Effects of Lockdown Policies on Health and Macroeconomic Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 287-319, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:287-319
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20210367
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin, Diego A. & Romero, Dario A., 2024. "Social distancing and COVID-19 under violence: Evidence from Colombia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    2. Paul Labonne & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2023. "Risky news and credit market sentiment," Working Papers No 14/2023, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    3. Ida Johnsson & M. Hashem Pesaran & Cynthia Fan Yang, 2023. "Structural Econometric Estimation of the Basic Reproduction Number for Covid-19 across U.S. States and Selected Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 10659, CESifo.
    4. Xiwen Bai & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Yiliang Li & Francesco Zanetti, 2024. "The Causal Effects of Global Supply Chain Disruptions on Macroeconomic Outcomes: Evidence and Theory," Economics Series Working Papers 1033, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Christis Katsouris, 2023. "Structural Analysis of Vector Autoregressive Models," Papers 2312.06402, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    6. Hilde C. Bjørnland & Malin C. Jensen & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2023. "Business Cycle and Health Dynamics during the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Scandinavian Perspective," Working Papers No 15/2023, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    7. De Schryder, Selien & Koutounidis, Nikolaos & Schoors, Koen & Weytjens, Johannes, 2025. "Assessing the heterogeneous impact of COVID-19 on consumption using bank transactions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Chang Zhai & Ping Chen & Zhuo Jin & David Pitt, 2025. "Optimising pandemic response through vaccination strategies using neural networks," Papers 2511.16932, arXiv.org.
    9. Emiliozzi, Simone & Rondinelli, Concetta & Villa, Stefania, 2025. "Unveiling consumption patterns during COVID-19: Insights from credit cards," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    10. Jésus Fernández-Villaverde & Tomohide Mineyama & Dongho Song & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, 2024. "Are We Fragmented Yet? Measuring Geopolitical Fragmentation and Its Causal Effects," CESifo Working Paper Series 11192, CESifo.
    11. Crudu, Federico & Di Stefano, Roberta & Mellace, Giovanni & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2024. "The gray zone: How not imposing a strict lockdown at the beginning of a pandemic can cost many lives," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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