Assessing the Economic Impact of Lockdowns in Italy: A Computational Input-Output Approach

Abstract

We build a novel interregional computational input-output model to assess the economic impact of lockdowns in Italy. Lockdowns are modeled as shocks to labor supply, calibrated on regional and sectoral employment data coupled with the prescriptions of government decrees. When estimated on data from the first lockdown, our model closely reproduces the observed economic dynamics during spring 2020. We also show that the model delivers a good out-of-sample performance during fall and winter 2020 and demonstrate that it can be used to analyze counterfactual scenarios.