How does interconnectedness affect the course of a pandemic? What are the optimal withinand between-state containment policies? We embed a spatial SIR model into a multi-sector quantitative trade model. We calibrate it to US states and the COVID-19 pandemic and find that interconnectedness...

We calibrate a macroeconomic model with epidemiological restrictions using Colombian data. The key feature of our model is that a portion of the population is immune and cannot transmit the virus, which improves substantially the fit of the model to the observed contagion and economic activity...

Overall mobility declined during the COVID-19 pandemic because of government lockdowns and voluntary social distancing. Yet, aggregate data mask important heterogeneous effects across segments of the population. Using unique mobility indicators based on anonymized and aggregate data provided by...

We consider several epidemiological simulations of the COVID-19 pandemic using the textbook SIR model and discuss the basic implications of these results for crafting an adequate response to the ensuing economic crisis. Our simulations are meant to be illustrative of the findings reported in...

How does contagion risk affect the business cycle? We find that the presence of contagion risk significantly alters the transmission of standard macroeconomic shocks. Relative to the first-best equilibrium, the contagion externality significantly reduces the response of output to a technology...

We study the interaction between epidemics and economic decisions in a model where (1) agents allocate their time to market and home production and social and home leisure, (2) these activities differ in their degree of contagiousness, (3) some infected individuals are indistinguishable from...