Economic Activity and the Spread of Viral Diseases: Evidence from High Frequency Data *

Abstract

Viruses are a major threat to human health, and—given that they spread through social interactions—represent a costly externality. This article addresses three main questions: (i) what are the unintended consequences of economic activity on the spread of infections; (ii) how efficient are measures that limit interpersonal contacts; (iii) how do we allocate our scarce resources to limit the spread of infections? To answer these questions, we use novel high frequency data from France on the incidence of a number of viral diseases across space, for different age groups, over a quarter of a century. We use quasi-experimental variation to evaluate the importance of policies reducing interpersonal contacts such as school closures or the closure of public transportation networks. While these policies significantly reduce disease prevalence, we find that they are not cost-effective. We find that expansions of transportation networks have significant health costs in increasing the spread of viruses, and that propagation rates are pro-cyclically sensitive to economic conditions and increase with inter-regional trade.

Impacts of Social and Economic Factors on the Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China

“…To model the spread of the virus, we consider simultaneously within city spread and between city transmissions, as in Adda (2016). The baseline model is…”

“…First, our analysis is connected to the economics and epidemiologic literature on the influencing factors of and ways of preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Existing studies find that reductions in interpersonal contact from holiday school closings (Adda, 2016), reactive school closure (Litvinova et al, 2019), public transportation strikes (Godzinski and Suarez Castillo, 2019), strategic targeting of travelers from high-incidence locations (Milusheva, 2017), and paid sick leave to keep contagious workers at home (Barmby andLarguem, 2009, Pichler andZiebarth, 2017) can reduce the prevalence of influenza.…”

“…Additionally, literature find that epidemics spread faster during economic booms (Adda, 2016), increases in employment are associated with increased incidence of influenza (Markowitz et al, 2010), and growth in trade can significantly increase the spread of influenza (Adda, 2016) and HIV (Oster, 2012). Vaccination (Maurer, 2009, White, 2019 and sunlight exposure (Slusky and Zeckhauser, 2018) are also found effective in reducing the spread of influenza.…”

The Impact of School Closure for COVID-19 on the US Healthcare Workforce and the Net Mortality Effects

“…Smith et al, Lempel, Epstein, and Hammond, and Adda analyze the economic impacts of school closures. 1,6,7 Schooling is one of the most important investments we make in our children's futures, and we do not have good estimates of how prolonged school closures influence drop-out rates and future earnings. This uncertainty makes a holistic assessment of tradeoffs challenging.…”

The Effects of In Utero Exposure to Influenza on Birth and Infant Outcomes in the US

“…The incidence of influenza is seasonal, with US epidemics typically occurring between November and March and peaking in the early winter months (Moniz and Beigi ), but the virus does circulate at very low levels during the off‐peak months. Due to differences in strains, host immunity, and socioeconomic and environmental factors, there is great inter‐annual variation in monthly influenza incidence and mortality rates; this allows me to compare epidemics of different intensities across years (Figure ) (Greene, Ionides, and Wilson ; Barreca and Shimshack ; Adda ).…”