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【Webinar】Between Lives and Economy: Optimal COVID-19 Containment Policy in Open Economies


  • 研討會日期 : 2020-11-20
  • 時間 : 11:15
  • 主講人 : Professor Wen-Tai Hsu (許文泰)
  • 地點 : Conference Room C103
  • 演講者簡介 : Professor Hsu received his Ph.D. in Economics from University of Minnesota in 2008. He is currently an Associate Professor in Singapore Management University. His main research fields are Applied Micro Theory, International Economics, Urban and Regional Economics, and Industrial Organization.
  • 演講摘要 : This paper studies optimal containment policy for combating a pandemic in an openeconomy context. It does so via quantitative analyses using a model that incorporates a standard epidemiological compartmental model in a multi-country, multi-sector Ricardian model of international trade with full-fledged input-output linkages. We devise a novel approach in computing optimal national policies in the long run, and contrast these policies with a baseline in which countries maintain their current policies until vaccine availability. The welfare gains under optimal policies are asymmetric as the gains for the set of countries which should tighten up the containment measures are much larger than those which should relax. We also find that the welfare implications of optimal policies in open economies differ significantly from those in closed ones.