IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfm/wpaper/2030.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

COVID19: Erroneous Modelling and Its Policy Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Yinon Bar-On

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Tatiana Baron

    (Ben Gurion University)

  • Ofer Cornfeld

    (BFI)

  • Ron Milo

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Eran Yashiv

    (Tel Aviv University
    Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM)
    London School of Economics (LSE)
    Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR))

Abstract

Research in Economics on COVID19 typically posits an economy subject to a model of epidemiological dynamics. We place this model on the foundations of an epidemiological analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 transmission timescales. We formulate a full model with both epidemiologically based and clinically based parameterization. Doing so, we are able to study the dynamic properties of the epidemic. We show that there is often serious mis-specification of the model, erroneously characterizing a relatively slow-moving disease, thereby distorting the policymaker decisions. This leads to a higher death toll and potentially also to higher loss of output.

Suggested Citation

  • Yinon Bar-On & Tatiana Baron & Ofer Cornfeld & Ron Milo & Eran Yashiv, 2020. "COVID19: Erroneous Modelling and Its Policy Implications," Discussion Papers 2030, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    • Handle: RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.lse.ac.uk/CFM/assets/pdf/CFM-Discussion-Papers-2020/CFMDP2020-30-Paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greg Kaplan & Benjamin Moll & Giovanni L. Violante, 2020. "The Great Lockdown and the Big Stimulus: Tracing the Pandemic Possibility Frontier for the U.S," NBER Working Papers 27794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Jones, Charles I., 2022. "Estimating and simulating a SIRD Model of COVID-19 for many countries, states, and cities," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    3. Glenn Ellison, 2020. "Implications of Heterogeneous SIR Models for Analyses of COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 27373, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Fernando Alvarez & David Argente, 2020. "A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lockdown," Working Papers 2020-34, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    5. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones & Peter J. Klenow, 2020. "Trading Off Consumption and COVID-19 Deaths," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 42(1), pages 1-14, June.
    6. Callum Jones & Thomas Philippon & Venky Venkateswaran, 2021. "Optimal Mitigation Policies in a Pandemic: Social Distancing and Working from Home [A simple planning problem for covid-19 lockdown]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5188-5223.
    7. Yinon Bar-On & Tatiana Baron & Ofer Cornfeld & Eran Yashiv, 2023. "When to Lock, Not Whom: Managing Epidemics Using Time-Based Restrictions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 292-321, December.
    8. Andrew B. Abel & Stavros Panageas, 2020. "Social Distancing, Vaccination and the Paradoxical Optimality of an Endemic Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 27742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Christopher Avery & William Bossert & Adam Clark & Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2020. "An Economist's Guide to Epidemiology Models of Infectious Disease," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 79-104, Fall.
    10. Daniel Stadlbauer & Jessica Tan & Kaijun Jiang & Matthew M. Hernandez & Shelcie Fabre & Fatima Amanat & Catherine Teo & Guha Asthagiri Arunkumar & Meagan McMahon & Christina Capuano & Kathryn Twyman &, 2021. "Repeated cross-sectional sero-monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in New York City," Nature, Nature, vol. 590(7844), pages 146-150, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Facundo Piguillem & Liyan Shi, 2022. "Optimal Covid-19 Quarantine and Testing Policies," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(647), pages 2534-2562.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yasushi Iwamoto, 2021. "Welfare economics of managing an epidemic: an exposition," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 72(4), pages 537-579, October.
    2. Yinon Bar-On & Tatiana Baron & Ofer Cornfeld & Eran Yashiv, 2023. "When to Lock, Not Whom: Managing Epidemics Using Time-Based Restrictions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 292-321, December.
    3. Dirk Niepelt & Mart n Gonzalez-Eiras, 2020. "Optimally Controlling an Epidemic," Diskussionsschriften dp2019, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    4. Yinon Bar-On & Tatiana Baron & Ofer Cornfeld & Eran Yashiv, 2023. "When to Lock, Not Whom: Managing Epidemics Using Time-Based Restrictions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 292-321, December.
    5. Yashiv, Eran & Bar-On, Yinon & Baron, Tatiana & Milo, Ron, 2020. "Caveats for Economists: Epidemiology-Based Modelling of COVID19 and Model Misspecifications," CEPR Discussion Papers 15107, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. David Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2020. "Nonlinear Production Networks with an Application to the Covid-19 Crisis," NBER Working Papers 27281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Gopal K. Basak & Chandramauli Chakraborty & Pranab Kumar Das, 2021. "Optimal Lockdown Strategy in a Pandemic: An Exploratory Analysis for Covid-19," Papers 2109.02512, arXiv.org.
    8. Giorgio Fabbri & Salvatore Federico & Davide Fiaschi & Fausto Gozzi, 2024. "Mobility decisions, economic dynamics and epidemic," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 77(1), pages 495-531, February.
    9. Lin William Cong & Ke Tang & Bing Wang & Jingyuan Wang, 2021. "An AI-assisted Economic Model of Endogenous Mobility and Infectious Diseases: The Case of COVID-19 in the United States," Papers 2109.10009, arXiv.org.
    10. Pol Antràs & Stephen J. Redding & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2023. "Globalization and Pandemics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(4), pages 939-981, April.
    11. Timo Boppart & Karl Harmenberg & John Hassler & Per Krusell & Jonna Olsson, 2020. "Integrated Epi-Econ Assessment," NBER Working Papers 28282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Lin Ma & Gil Shapira & Damien de Walque & Quy‐Toan Do & Jed Friedman & Andrei A. Levchenko, 2022. "The Intergenerational Mortality Trade‐Off Of Covid‐19 Lockdown Policies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1427-1468, August.
    13. Garriga, Carlos & Manuelli, Rody & Sanghi, Siddhartha, 2022. "Optimal management of an epidemic: Lockdown, vaccine and value of life," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    14. Vandenbroucke Guillaume, 2022. "The Mechanics of Individually- and Socially-Optimal Decisions during an Epidemic," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 131-158, January.
    15. Bianchi, Francesco & Bianchi, Giada & Song, Dongho, 2023. "The long-term impact of the COVID-19 unemployment shock on life expectancy and mortality rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. David Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2022. "Supply and Demand in Disaggregated Keynesian Economies with an Application to the COVID-19 Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(5), pages 1397-1436, May.
    17. Janiak, Alexandre & Machado, Caio & Turén, Javier, 2021. "Covid-19 contagion, economic activity and business reopening protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 264-284.
    18. Julliard, Christian & Shi, Ran & Yuan, Kathy, 2023. "The spread of COVID-19 in London: Network effects and optimal lockdowns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2125-2154.
    19. Shomak Chakrabarti & Ilia Krasikov & Rohit Lamba, 2022. "Behavioral epidemiology: An economic model to evaluate optimal policy in the midst of a pandemic," Papers 2202.04174, arXiv.org.
    20. Sewon Hur, 2023. "The Distributional Effects Of Covid‐19 And Optimal Mitigation Policies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(1), pages 261-294, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    epidemiological dynamics; COVID19; transmission timescales; optimal policy; public health; disease dynamics and scale; misspecification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2030. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Helen Power (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmlseuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.