Abstract Using high-frequency proxies for economic activity over a large sample of countries, we show that the economic crisis during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic was only partly due to government lockdowns. Economic activity also contracted severely because of voluntary social distancing in response to higher infections. Furthermore, we show that lockdowns substantially reduced COVID-19 cases, especially if they were introduced early in a country’s epidemic. This implies that, despite involving short-term economic costs, lockdowns may pave the way to a faster recovery by containing the spread of the virus and reducing voluntary social distancing. Finally, we document that lockdowns entail decreasing marginal economic costs but increasing marginal benefits in reducing infections. This suggests that tight short-lived lockdowns are preferable to mild prolonged measures.

中文翻译：

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通过早期和严格的封锁保护生命和生计

摘要使用高频代理在大量国家/地区进行经济活动，我们表明，COVID-19 大流行前七个月的经济危机仅部分归因于政府的封锁。由于为应对更高的感染而自愿保持社交距离，经济活动也严重收缩。此外，我们表明，封锁大大减少了 COVID-19 病例，特别是如果它们是在一个国家的流行病早期引入的。这意味着，尽管涉及短期经济成本，但封锁可能会通过遏制病毒的传播和减少自愿的社会距离来为更快的复苏铺平道路。最后，我们记录了封锁会降低边际经济成本，但会增加减少感染的边际收益。