Author: Sudipta Sarangi

Sudipta Sarangi is a Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech, USA

March 31, 2020 /

There is lock down and then there is locking down the economy and the two are not the same! This is my attempt to explain the connections between the two.
Lockdown is an extreme form of social distancing – everyone stays at home and therefore is automatically not proximal to the others. The corollary is that by successfully doing so you bring the whole country and therefore the economy to a halt! The goal of this exercise as epidemiologists and other medical professionals will explain is to “flatten the curve.” And this in some ways is the first thing to notice: the name is really about flattening the curve and not eliminating the curve.