恐惧的不平等与自我隔离：GDP与公共卫生之间存在权衡吗？

中文摘要

我们构建了一个遭受疫情冲击的经济体的量化模型。人们选择职业并做出居家办公决策，以实现收入最大化并尽量减少对感染的恐惧。各职业在工资、感染风险以及居家办公时的生产率损失方面存在差异。该模型以韩国（SK）和英国（UK）进行校准，以比较韩国的强化检测与隔离政策和英国的封锁政策。我们发现，韩国的政策在英国本可以同样奏效，能大幅减少死亡人数和GDP损失。英国封锁与韩国政策之间的关键差异并不在于检测力度，而在于（英国）对多数人的活动实施宽松限制与（韩国）对少数特定人群实施严格限制之间的对比。封锁本身可能也并不构成GDP与公共卫生之间的明确权衡。过早解除封锁会暂时提高GDP，但感染随时间推移而上升，人们出于对感染的恐惧自愿选择居家办公，从而形成W型衰退。最后，我们发现，无论在疫情本身还是防控政策之下，低技能劳动者和自雇者都始终损失最大。

Abstract

We construct a quantitative model of an economy hit by a pandemic. People choose occupations and make work-from-home decisions to maximize income and minimize their fear of infection. Occupations differ by wage, infection risk, and the productivity loss when working from home. The model is calibrated to South Korea (SK) and the United Kingdom (UK) to compare SK’s intensive testing and quarantine policy against UK’s lockdown. We find that SK’s policies would have worked equally well in the UK, dramatically reducing both deaths and GDP losses. The key contrast between UK’s lockdown and SK’s policies was not in the intensity of testing, but weak restrictions on the activity of many (UK) versus strict restrictions on a targeted few (SK). Lockdowns themselves may not present a clear trade-off between GDP and public health either. A premature lifting of the lockdown raises GDP temporarily, but infections rise over time and people voluntarily choose to work from home for fear of infection, generating a W-shaped recession. Finally, we find that low-skill workers and self-employed always lose the most from both the pandemic itself and containment policies.