71-vol. 36, no. 1, january-june, 2021, Special issue on the Mexican economy
Articles

The economic benefits and costs of COVID-19 mitigation measures in Mexico

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  • Rubén Irvin Rojas Valdés
Rubén Irvin Rojas Valdés
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24201/ee.v36i1.415

Published 2021-01-14

Keywords

  • COVID-19,
  • Mexico,
  • cost-benefit,
  • epidemic

How to Cite

Rojas Valdés, R. I. (2021). The economic benefits and costs of COVID-19 mitigation measures in Mexico. Estudios Económicos De El Colegio De México, 36(1), 27–56. https://doi.org/10.24201/ee.v36i1.415

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Abstract

In this paper I calculate the daily flows of COVID-19 cases under the scenario of social distance and restricted economic activity implemented during the first months after the beginning of the epidemic, and under a counterfactual uncontrolled scenario with no mitigation measures. I estimate that social distance policies reduce the number of COVID-19 cases by 33%, saving over 292,000 lives. The benefits of these measures are monetized as 526 billion USD. Under a plausible economic recovery trajectory, I estimate that the net cost of mitigation in terms of output gap is equal to 35% of Mexico’s 2019 GDP.

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