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India's pharmaceutical sector has been one of the largest manufacturers of generic drugs globally. During the pandemic, most countries were dependent on imports of generic drugs from India. However, India has been relying on resources from China for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) which are the raw material for preparing generic drugs. We considered, in our analysis, branded product groups of Paracetamol and Amoxicillin due to their extensive use in the treatment of COVID-19. From a thorough market analysis of both the drugs, we conclude that firms have a monopoly over their brands but compete within the same product group and operate in their respective market under varying prices within certain bandwidths which resembles the feature of monopolistic competitive market. We have introduced compensating function a la Helpman (1981) in the pharmaceutical goods market with the assumption that an 'ideal product' exists among the pharmaceutical goods. Given the framework, this paper explores a general equilibrium model set in a monopolistic competitive product market for branded drugs. We concluded through our propositions that expanding the pharmaceutical sector will increase the employment of unskilled labor under no capacity constraint. We will observe an increase in wages of unskilled labor only under full employment conditions wherein we would observe that the expansion of pharmaceutical good will increase wages in the unskilled labor market. However we obtain an intriguing result wherein we obtain that despite instances of limiting trade dependence on China through implementation of policies like 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and 'profit linked incentive schemes', yet to maintain the status quo in the global market for generic drugs, India's dependence on China would increase, owing to API imports due to the pandemic crisis. While India can grab the opportunity in the form of increased demand for pharmaceutical goods to increase the employment level of the economy but this improvement in welfare is also dependent on the degree of dependency of API India has on China. The Indian government has recognized the same through the incorporation of 'Covid-Suraksha' and PLI schemes to minimize import dependency, and accelerate the development of APIs and the production of indigenous drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although both central and state governments in India took the decisions to impose hard paternalistic policies of lockdown/shutdown to manage the spread of COVID-19, new cases were rising even after the first and second waves. Reverse migration, lack of social distancing, and failure to adhere to appropriate covid behavior are attributed as the leading cause of COVID-19 spread. The policy measures like 'Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana,' financial assistance, and series of lockdowns and shutdowns by the government of India have not significantly controlledthe spread of disease owing to a lack of understanding of individual's reaction to the pandemic and their reactive behavior. This paper used daily COVID-19 positive cases data to show the overall picture of COVID-19 in India. It used the explorative method to review articles related to behavioral biases involved in the decision-making process of migrant workers and individuals during the pandemic. The paper's findings show that different behavioral biases like base rate neglect, herd behavior, anchoring effect, availability bias are responsible for creating chaos, trauma, and anxiety among the migrant workers and leading to reverse migration in India. Despite knowing that COVID-19 is a fatal disease, some individuals' reaction to it was casual mainly because of hyperbolic discounting bias, optimism bias, overconfidence bias, confirmation bias, status quo bias, and loss aversion. Taking behavioral economics lessons, the paper suggests different nudging techniques for guiding people to maintain social distancing during this pandemic. Nudging has been proved to be an inexpensive tool in bringing desired behavioral changes in health economics. The paper concludes that nudging techniques can influence human behavior to control the spread of the disease. In the end, it gives direction for future work in this area to explore how behavioral economics can help policymakers to tackle the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a pandemic such as Covid-19, effective communication plays a key role both in crisis management and in the efforts to ensure public health and safety. Consequently, understanding public trust in different information sources is one of the most important aspects in designing effective communication strategies. This article explores public trust in different information sources in the context of Covid-19 in Bangladesh, and asks: Firstly, which information sources do people mostly trust in a pandemic? Secondly, does trust in different information sources vary across peoples' gender, age, education level, stream of education, employment status, socio-economic background, religion and political affiliation, and if so, how does trust in information sources vary across these socio-demographic characteristics? Using primary data from an urban sample, we employ binary probit models to obtain the determinants of individuals' most trusted information source during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our paper finds that there are differences in the trust that individuals place in different information sources. These differences vary in magnitude and significance across different socio-demographic characteristics, and our evidence insists that we take into account these differences when steering policy. In particular, we find that most of the urban population of Bangladesh mostly trust the government and administration as a source of information during a pandemic such as Covid-19. On the other hand, media celebrities and politicians are among the least trusted information sources. In addition, our results reveal that the government and administration face, as an information source, a trust deficit among females, Muslim people and Bangla medium and English medium educated people as compared to people with no formal education. Our findings provide valuable information to policymakers on how to best disseminate critical information to reach different populations, e.g., females, non-Muslims, not formally educated individuals. Based on our findings, we recommend targeted community engagement, tailored according to the trust in information sources of different groups of individuals, and we advocate for the increased involvement of government authorities, administration and academicians in disseminating Covid-19 related information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts is set to run havoc across economies in the world, throwing many into recession and possibly depression. The aim of this paper is to provide an overall understanding of the likely macroeconomic shocks of the pandemic on a diverse range of economic activities and indicators across economies. The paper covers implications to demand, supply, supply chain, trade, investment, price level, exchange rates, and financial stability and risk, growth, and international cooperation. The paper combines a unique theoretical impact mapping and supplements it with emerging evidence to develop the impacts’ likely progression and span. Furthermore, the paper uses a standard Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply (AD-AS) model of macroeconomics to explain the likely growth effects arising out of essential and nonessential goods markets and outlines necessary features policy responses should consider. Data and information to analyze the impacts are assimilated from different sources, including news and media publications, the OECD, and IHS Markit-CIPS. Assessments of this paper suggest that many economies are about to see a period of stagflation driven by demand and supply slump, increased unemployment, deflationary pressure, reduced trade flows, and disruptions in the supply chain, which may result in a recessionary period if not acted fast with innovative policy responses. As almost all economies are badly affected, a global growth recession is imminent if the pandemic continues. However, based on past experience of pandemics and epidemics and the current evidence, a U-shaped recovery pattern is the most optimistic possibility for most countries and the world economy. The paper could help policy-makers in understanding the pandemic’s broad-based impacts and policy needs to fight the imminent economic damage. Particularly, assessments with respect to the essential and non-essential goods markets could provide useful insights in designing appropriate policy responses to fight the pandemic. All considered, the paper calls for a collective and globalized response alongside standalone policy responses undertaken by individual economies. The assessments are broadly in line with the limited literature available on macroeconomic implications of CVODI-19 and could serve as a basis for advanced analysis on COVID-19 economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To arrest the spread of COVID-19, most countries have imposed some form of lockdown to ensure social distancing. For India, a complete was imposed by the Central Government over four phases and over two months (April-June, 2020). While the effectiveness of such a stringent measure is yet to be established, some estimates of the economic distress owing to lockdown are available and it projects a substantial drop in GDP as well as State Domestic Products. It is therefore important for India to plan the unlock down phase well. Unfortunately, with the possibility of may more pandemic related disruptions that are likely to happen in the future, both lock down as well as removal of lockdown becomes a key determinant for both controlling the spread of pandemics as well as revive the economy. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework to address how un lockdown must be planned and discuss the respective roles of the States as well as the Centre. The model is set against the backdrop where a large part of the migrant labor has also been forced to return to their home States. In our model, the Centre as well as the States maximize the Expected Economic output while planning un lockdown. The probability of COVID spread is modeled using simple Epidemiological probability function. We find that a centralized lockdown would mean lower lockdown levels for the labor receiving state compared to the case when such decisions were decentralized and a higher lockdown level for the labor sending state as compared to the case when such decisions were decentralized. We recommend that the role of the Centre in easing of lockdown must be limited to two things. One, support the States with more investments in health infrastructure that will help them reduce lockdown intensities. Two, compensate the expected shortfall in wage income through a Direct Benefit Transfer to the labor in the two States. Our model can be used to implement unlock down phases should a contingency in the future arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]