The macroeconomics of the COVID-19 epidemic: the case of China

Abstract This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on economic and health outcomes in China from January 20 to September 28, 2020. We first document China’s containment policies and present empirical evidence on the role of the online economy. We then use a SIR-macro model to study the macroeconomic and health outcomes of the epidemic. The model can generate infection and death dynamics broadly consistent with the data and the U-shaped recovery of the Chinese economy at the weekly frequency. The analysis reveals that, in addition to the containment policies, the development of the online economy (both online consumption and remote work) plays a critical role in fighting an epidemic.