1. Optimal Lockdown in a Commuting Network
- Author
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Fajgelbaum, Pablo, Khandelwal, Amit, Kim, Wookun, Mantovani, Cristiano, and Schaal, Edouard
- Subjects
Equilibri (Economia) ,0303 health sciences ,05 social sciences ,1. No poverty ,Transport ,Carreteres ,Comunicacions ,03 medical and health sciences ,0502 economics and business ,11. Sustainability ,Pandèmia de COVID-19, 2020 ,General Earth and Planetary Sciences ,050207 economics ,030304 developmental biology ,General Environmental Science - Abstract
Supplementary materials files: online appendix; replication data We study optimal dynamic lockdowns against COVID-19 within a commuting network. Our framework integrates canonical spatial epidemiology and trade models and is applied to cities with varying initial viral spread: Seoul, Daegu, and the New York City metropolitan area (NYM). Spatial lockdowns achieve substantially smaller income losses than uniform lockdowns. In the NYM and Daegu—with large initial shocks—the optimal lockdown restricts inflows to central districts before gradual relaxation, while in Seoul it imposes low temporal but large spatial variation. Actual commuting reductions were too weak in central locations in Daegu and the NYM and too strong across Seoul. Schaal acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0563) and the European Research Council Starting Grant 804095.
- Published
- 2021
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