Restarting the economy while saving lives under Covid-19

Abstract

Andrea Ichino discusses the findings of his recent paper, jointly written with Aldo Rustichini and Carlo Favero, where they provide, calibrate and test a realistic model of the spread of SARS-Cov-2 in an economy where the population has different age groups and sectors. The model takes into account factors that have proved to be essential in explaining features of the effect of the epidemic, in particular the constraint in the number of Intensive Care Units available in a region and the different response to the epidemic of individuals of different ages. They characterise the policies of containment of the epidemic that are efficient with respect to important outcomes such as number of fatalities and GDP loss.