If you listen to Trump, Kudlow or other WH aides, you might think we have to choose between what's optimal for public health and what's optimal for the economy. Save lives, or maximize GDP. But if you listen to actual economists, you'll learn this is a false choice. /1
IGM Panel Survey of top economic experts shows that vast majority believe that "reopening" the economy prematurely, as Trump has agitated to do, will cause *greater* economic damage in long-run. igmchicago.org/surveys/policy… /2 
Work from Martin Eichenbaum, Sergio Rebelo & Mathias Trabandt finds that not shuttering businesses would be much costlier to society than allowing them to stay open, once both economic and human costs are factored in insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/econom… /3
Health benefits can be translated into econ value too. Greenstone & Nigam find moderate social distancing would save 1.7M lives Mar 1 -Oct 1; mortality benefits (using VSL) equate to $8T, or over 1/3 of US GDP & larger than entire annual federal budget bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/upl… /4
.@LHSummers also correctly points out that "It is an elementary confusion to believe that lost growth and lost jobs are primarily a consequence of social-distancing measures rather than the pandemic itself" washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/… /5
Correia, Luck, & Verner studied 1918 Spanish flu. Found that "cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively" through
public gathering bans, isolation and quarantine, etc. did better economically after the pandemic than cities that didn't papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… /6
public gathering bans, isolation and quarantine, etc. did better economically after the pandemic than cities that didn't papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… /6
See also this statement from Economic Strategy Group, signed by (among others) a bipartisan group of high-profile economists and economic policymakers: "Saving lives and saving the economy are not in conflict right now" economicstrategygroup.org/resource/econo… /7
And sorry, an earlier tweet in this thread got garbled. This should say their research finds not shuttering businesses would be costlier than shuttering them
(hopefully evident from rest of thread/link to research summary) /8
(hopefully evident from rest of thread/link to research summary) /8
