I use a simple SIR model, augmented to include deaths, to elucidate how pandemic progression is affected by the control of contagion, and examine the key trade-offs that underlie policy design. I illustrate how the cost of reducing the "reproduction number" R0 depends on how it changes the...

It is politicians who have to decide when to release the lockdown, and in what way. In doing so, they have to balance many considerations (as with any decision). Often the different considerations appear incommensurable so that only the roughest of judgements can be made. For example, in the...

This paper analyzes a sequential approach to lifting interventions in the COVID-19 pandemic taking heterogeneity in the population into account. The population is heterogeneous in terms of the consequences of infection (need for hospitalization and critical care, and mortality) and in terms of...

This paper studies optimal lockdown policies in a dynamic economy without government commitment. A lockdown imposes a cap on labor supply, which lowers economic output but improves health prospects. A government would like to commit to limit the extent of future lockdowns in order to increase...

This paper studies optimal lockdown policies in a dynamic economy without government commitment. A lockdown imposes a cap on labor supply, which lowers economic output but improves health prospects. A government would like to commit to limit the extent of future lockdowns in order to increase...

This paper studies the relationship between the COVID-19, an infectious disease, and different financial assets. We find that the change in the newly confirmed cases per thousand people in US rather than that in China can positively predict the S&P 500 return. Moreover, we find that the change...