The macroeconomics of COVID-19

COVID-19 became a global health emergency when it threatened the catastrophic collapse of health systems worldwide. Its particular mix of rapid spread and severity caused demand for health goods and services and their relative prices to surge, unlike other diseases that are deadlier (e.g. Ebola, MERS) or just as contagious but less severe (e.g. Influenza, H1N1). Governments responded to the catastrophic saturation of health systems with prolonged lockdowns that caused large drops in economic activity. In this talk, Professor Tesar will review some recent evidence on the impact of  COVID-19 on economic activity in the US and abroad and will discuss some of the ways that macroeconomists have begun to model the "COVID shock" and its economic effects. 

• Macroeconomics