Lives versus Livelihoods during the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Testing Softens the Trade-Off

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Reopening strategies, mobility and COVID-19 infections in Europe: panel data analysis

“…While there is, by now, a large literature on how lockdown affects activity and infections,3–7 there is relatively less evidence on the effects of reopening policies. Several studies have proposed optimal strategies to exit from lockdowns 8–10.…”

Lives and Livelihood, Not Quite a Trade-Off: A Cross-Country Analysis of the Short-Term Impact of COVID-19 Mortality on Real GDP

“…Similarly, the IV 2SLS analysis also found imprecise estimates in the same direction. While the closely related Islamaj & Mattoo (2021) found a lack of trade-off, even when a shorter study duration, excluding the main segment of the global vaccination drive, the analysis accepted the existence of a trade-off that was simply weakened by testing. In a LLTO paradigm, the expected sign of the associ- ation between COVID-19 mortality, and real GDP, should either be positive, or a precisely estimated zero, coupled with a negative contribution from NPIs.…”

The Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions on Economic Activity: Evidence from the Italian Regional System

“…Since the outbreak of Sars-Cov2, a growing literature has investigated the economic consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic, with many papers trying to estimate the impact of restrictions on economic activity. This literature contributes to the debate on the potential trade-off that policymakers face between saving lives and livelihood when adopting NPIs (Gourinchas, 2020;Islamaj et al, 2021). Evaluating the economic impact of containment measures raises several challenges for an empirical researcher.…”

“…Many studies employ some form of regression technique in cross-country analysis where a mobility indicator is regressed on a proxy of NPIs, generally the Oxford stringency Index developed by Hale et al (2020), (Goolsbee and Syverson, 2021;Deb et al, 2020;WEO, 2020;Mendolia et al, 2021;Boone and Ladreit, 2021;Buono and Conteduca, 2020;Goldstein et al, 2021). Most studies proxy the impact of the virus on individual behavior by employing data on Covid-19 cases and related fatalities (Goolsbee and Syverson, 2021;Deb et al, 2020;WEO, 2020;Mendolia et al, 2021;Boone and Ladreit, 2021;Buono and Conteduca, 2020;Islamaj et al, 2021;Kong and Prinz, 2020).…”

“…As NPIs are thought to have economic costs, a heated debate around the trade-off between 'saving lives and livelihoods' has emerged (Islamaj et al, 2021). The empirical research on this topic faces serious challenges, particularly regarding how to disentangle the effects of NPIs from those of the epidemic itself.…”