EPGE professor Cezar Santos and alumnus Luiz Brotherhood recently authored a paper titled “An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies.” The study analyzes the impact of various social distancing policies on both public health and economic activity.

The economic and epidemiological model used considers behavioral changes in response to the pandemic and people’s uncertainty regarding their infection status. The authors performed an equilibrium analysis of the impact of people’s actions on other people. “The change in an older person’s behavior may differ from that of a younger person, as they are subject to different risks. And given that not everyone is tested, people do not know whether they are infected. As a result, we decided to study the impact of testing and smart containment lockdown policies,” Santos said.
 
The methodology used is the same one described in an article by Professor Cezar Santos, called “An Equilibrium Model of the African HIV/AIDS Epidemic,” published in Econometrica in 2019 and adapted to COVID-19’s specific characteristics.

The study, which featured in a Folha de S.Paulo newspaper article, can be consulted on this website.