%0 Report
        %A Bar-On, Yinon
%A Baron, Tatiana
%A Cornfeld, Ofer
%A Milo, Ron
%A Yashiv, Eran
        %T COVID-19: Erroneous Modelling and Its Policy Implications
        %D 2021
        %8 2021 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 14202
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp14202
        %X Research in Economics on COVID-19 posits an economy subject to disease dynamics, which are often seriously misspecified in terms of speed and scale. Using a social planner problem, we show that such misspecifications lead to misguided policy. Erroneously characterizing a relatively slow-moving disease engenders dramatically higher death tolls and excessive output loss relative to the correct benchmark. We delineate the latter, employing epidemiological evidence on the timescales of COVID-19 transmission and clinical progression. The resulting sound model is simple, transparent, and novel in Economics.
        %K optimal policy
%K public health
%K GDP loss
%K COVID-19
%K disease dynamics and scale
%K misspecification