IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/26867.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Will Be the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in the US? Rough Estimates of Disease Scenarios

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Atkeson

Abstract

This note is intended to introduce economists to a simple SIR model of the progression of COVID-19 in the United States over the next 12-18 months. An SIR model is a Markov model of the spread of an epidemic in a population in which the total population is divided into categories of being susceptible to the disease (S), actively infected with the disease (I), and recovered (or dead) and no longer contagious (R). How an epidemic plays out over time is determined by the transition rates between these three states. This model allows for quantitative statements regarding the tradeoff between the severity and timing of suppression of the disease through social distancing and the progression of the disease in the population. Example applications of the model are provided. Special attention is given to the question of if and when the fraction of active infections in the population exceeds 1% (at which point the health system is forecast to be severely challenged) and 10% (which may result in severe staffing shortages for key financial and economic infrastructure) as well as the cumulative burden of the disease over an 18 month horizon.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Atkeson, 2020. "What Will Be the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in the US? Rough Estimates of Disease Scenarios," NBER Working Papers 26867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26867
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w26867.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Barro & José F. Ursúa & Joanna Weng, 2020. "The Coronavirus and the Great Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from the “Spanish Flu” for the Coronavirus’s Potential Effects on Mortality and Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 26866, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Warwick McKibbin & Roshen Fernando, 2021. "The Global Macroeconomic Impacts of COVID-19: Seven Scenarios," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 20(2), pages 1-30, Summer.
    3. repec:aei:rpaper:1008560098 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Robert J. Barro & José F. Ursua & Joanna Weng, 2020. "The Coronavirus and the Great Influenza Epidemic - Lessons from the "Spanish Flu" for the Coronavirus's Potential Effects on Mortality and Economic Activity," CESifo Working Paper Series 8166, CESifo.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Takahashi, Hidenori & Yamada, Kazuo, 2021. "When the Japanese stock market meets COVID-19: Impact of ownership, China and US exposure, and ESG channels," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Li, Cong & Lin, Shiwei & Sun, Yihan & Afshan, Sahar & Yaqoob, Tanzeela, 2022. "The asymmetric effect of oil price, news-based uncertainty, and COVID-19 pandemic on equity market," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Lucian Liviu ALBU & Ciprian Ion PREDA & Radu LUPU & Carmen Elena DOBROTĂ & George Marian CĂLIN & Claudia M. BOGHICEVICI, 2020. "Estimates of Dynamics of the Covid19 Pandemic and of its Impact on the Economy," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(2), pages 5-17, July.
    4. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    5. Feras A. Batarseh & Munisamy Gopinath & Anderson Monken, 2020. "Artificial Intelligence Methods for Evaluating Global Trade Flows," International Finance Discussion Papers 1296, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Mahata, Ajit & Rai, Anish & Nurujjaman, Md. & Prakash, Om, 2021. "Modeling and analysis of the effect of COVID-19 on the stock price: V and L-shape recovery," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 574(C).
    7. Alexander Chudik & M. Hashem Pesaran & Alessandro Rebucci, 2020. "Voluntary and Mandatory Social Distancing: Evidence on COVID-19 Exposure Rates from Chinese Provinces and Selected Countries," Globalization Institute Working Papers 382, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    8. Matthew Spiegel & Heather Tookes, 2021. "Business Restrictions and COVID-19 Fatalities [The immediate effect of COVID-19 policies on social distancing behavior in the United States]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5266-5308.
    9. Ortmans, Aymeric & Tripier, Fabien, 2021. "COVID-induced sovereign risk in the euro area: When did the ECB stop the spread?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    10. Drakos, Anastasios & Moratis, Georgios, 2024. "The impact of COVID-19 on sovereign contagion," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    11. Garcia, Pablo & Jacquinot, Pascal & Lenarčič, Črt & Lozej, Matija & Mavromatis, Kostas, 2023. "Global models for a global pandemic: The impact of COVID-19 on small euro area economies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    12. Amos Z. B. Flomo & Elissaios Papyrakis & Natascha Wagner, 2023. "Evaluating the economic effects of the Ebola virus disease in Liberia: A synthetic control approach," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 1478-1504, August.
    13. Andre Assis de Salles, 2021. "COVID-19 Pandemic Initial Effects on the Idiosyncratic Risk in Latin America," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21, Julio - S.
    14. Çakmaklı, Cem & Demiralp, Selva & Özcan, Şebnem Kalemli & Yeşiltaş, Sevcan & Yıldırım, Muhammed A., 2023. "COVID-19 and emerging markets: A SIR model, demand shocks and capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    15. David E. Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2022. "Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 85-131, March.
    16. Marco Del Angel & Caroline Fohlin & Marc D. Weidenmier, 2021. "Do Global Pandemics Matter for Stock Prices? Lessons from the 1918 Spanish Flu," NBER Working Papers 28356, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Ghasemi, Abdolrasoul & Boroumand, Yasaman & Shirazi, Masoud, 2020. "How do governments perform in facing COVID-19?," MPRA Paper 99791, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Apr 2020.
    18. Casey B. Mulligan, 2020. "Economic Activity and the Value of Medical Innovation during a Pandemic," Working Papers 2020-48, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    19. Fenske, James & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Yuan, Song, 2022. "Demographic Shocks and Women’s Labor Market Participation: Evidence from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in India," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(3), pages 875-912, September.
    20. Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wang, Liang Choon, 2021. "Stigma and misconceptions in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A field experiment in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C0 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General
    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26867. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.