When a region tries to prevent an outbreak of an epidemic, two broad strategies are available: limiting the inflow of infected cases by using travel restrictions and quarantines or limiting the risk of local transmission from imported cases by using contact tracing and other community interventions. A number of papers have used epidemiological models to argue that inflow restrictions are unlikely to be effective. We simulate a simple epidemiological model to show that this conclusion changes if containment efforts such as contact tracing have limited capacity. In particular, our results show that moderate travel restrictions can lead to large reductions in the probability of an epidemic when contact tracing is effective but the contact tracing system is close to being overwhelmed.
When a region tries to prevent an outbreak of an epidemic, like that of COVID-19, two broad strategies are initially available: limiting the inflow of infected cases using travel restrictions and quarantines, and reducing the transmissions from inflowing cases using contact 10 tracing and community interventions. A large number of papers have used epidemiological models to argue that inflow restrictions are unlikely to be effective. We conduct a mathematical analysis using a simple epidemiological model and perform simulations which show how this conclusion changes if we relax the assumption of unlimited capacity in containment efforts such as contact tracing. In particular, when contact tracing is effective, but the system is close to being 15 overwhelmed, moderate travel restrictions can have a very large effect on the probability of an epidemic.
Can the price level be determined by a requirement that taxes should be paid in money? We study this question in a dynamic endowment economy where households have to pay a money tax of a fixed real value and money enters the economy through government expenditures and open market operations. When government expenditures only consist of purchases of real goods, the price level is bounded from above, but not uniquely determined. A unique price level can be obtained if the government also has access to money transfers, and uses these to fix its expenditure level in nominal terms.
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