Coronavirus: how are small businesses adjusting to COVID-19, targeting super-spreaders, and the CEPR “journal” on COVID economics – what I have been reading today (and yesterday)

Since I started to carefully study the coronavirus and its associated health and economic consequences in January 2020, I have been reading many news, research articles, and blog posts. I got more and more concerned and I hope that the situation will improve as soon as possible. Let me now regularly share with you some interesting background articles:

An interesting article on “How Are Small Businesses Adjusting to COVID-19? Early Evidence from a Survey” One of the main findings of the paper:

“Several main themes emerge from the results. First, mass layoffs and closures have already occurred. In our sample, 43 percent of businesses are temporarily closed, and businesses have – on average – reduced their employee counts by 40 percent relative to January.”

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26989#fromrss

An interesting link showing that controlling an epidemic means that one should target those in the population that generate most infections. Intuitive and I would say obvious, but it is sometimes forgotten in current discussions.

“This stupidly simple model makes the stark point that if we want to control an epidemic in a heterogeneous population, we should target the segment of the population that generates the most infections. This will often be the same segment of the population that is least at-risk for the most severe consequences of infection. This model provides the logic underlying what may seem like draconian social-distancing interventions (e.g., closing schools, canceling public gatherings).”

https://eehh-stanford.github.io/gceid/struct.html

The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) started the publication of a special “COVID Economics” journal containing papers with preliminary results. The journal contains many interesting articles. Here is the third issue. Highly recommended!

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