May 4, 2020: The Cost of Secrecy: Welfare Effects of the Disclosure of COVID-19 Cases
In the fight against the COVID-19, South Korea’s case stands out. The country, despite facing a large outbreak, was able to flatten the curve of new infections without shutting down its economy. Transparent information about the positive cases has helped South Korea not only to maximize the odds of testing the people most likely to be infected, but also has allowed people to engage in “targeted” social distancing by avoiding places visited by those that tested positive.
In this talk, Professor Stephan Haggard and Professor Munseob Lee discussed South Korea’s strategies. Lee introduced his recent work on measuring welfare effect of the disclosure. Data from mobile phone company quantifies degree of “targeted” social distancing. By combining meta-population SIR model in epidemiology and quantitative spatial model in economics, Lee described trade-off between public health and economic output, and provides evidence-based policy recommendations.
Given our inability to deliver in-person programming, the Korea-Pacific Program—directed by Stephan Haggard and Munseob Lee—is turning to a weekly webinar series. We will be looking at a diversity of issues this spring, from Korea’s response to the pandemic, to the LGBTQ community in Korea, to developments on the political front in both North and South Korea. This series has received generous support from the Korea Foundation.
