The Philippines entered its deepest recession in post-war history in 2020, with output declining by 9.6 percent. Coming up with a strategy on how to best manage the economy and deal with the fallout of the public health shock, especially on the weaker segments of society, became the biggest...

We study the macroeconomic effects of the COVID-19 epidemic in a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium setup with nominal rigidities. We evaluate various containment policies and show that they allow to dramatically reduce the welfare cost of the disease. Then we investigate the role that...