Working Paper

One Foe, So Many Fights. Making Sense of Covid-19 Policies

Hubert Kempf
CESifo, Munich, 2020

CESifo Working Paper No. 8325

This paper develops a tractable model of a society hit by a viral pandemic. It is sufficiently rich so as to relate the optimal decisions of the policymaker to the underlying characteristics of this society, in terms of preferences, social mores and economic structures. This allows us to make sense of the diversity of policies adopted worldwide with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic.

CESifo Category
Social Protection
Fiscal Policy, Macroeconomics and Growth
Keywords: Covid-19, public policy, trust, compliance, uncertainty
JEL Classification: E580, E620, F450, H760