Modelling the effects of pandemic control measures and financial support on businesses, regions and households

COVID-19大流行的经济后果远未结束。遏制病毒传播及其经济影响的短期干预措施正在逐步解除。现在，随着封锁的解除，人们的注意力理所当然地转向了哪些政策能在中长期内最好地支持企业、企业和家庭的问题。在接下来的几个月里，政府将面临一系列具有长期影响的困难挑战，包括如何安全地重新开放经济，如何以及何时解决日益增加的债务负担，以及如何确保可持续的经济复苏。我们提出了两个互补的、相互关联的研究方向，以帮助政府应对这些挑战。第一部分将建立一个部门-区域经济模型。我们的详细模型将纳入几个新颖的特征，这些特征将允许评估非常具体的政策干预措施的影响，包括针对不同行业的财政支持，以及在不同地区放松或重新实施社会距离限制。这将为政策制定者提供实时、实用的指导，了解不同政策对英国不同部门和地区的产出、投资和就业的短期和长期影响。第二部分工作将估算消费者行为模型，以了解封锁对家庭支出决策和生活水平的影响。这将使我们了解消费模式如何随着封锁措施和价格变化而变化，以及限制商品供应如何影响家庭生活水平（包括收入分配的差异）。

The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are far from over. Short-term interventions to contain the spread of the virus and its economic fallout are gradually being unwound. Now, as the lockdown is being lifted, attention is rightly turning to questions of which policies will best support firms, businesses and households in the medium to long-run. Over the coming months, the government faces a number of difficult challenges with long run implications, including how to reopen the economy safely, how and when to address its mounting debt burden, and how to ensure a sustainable economic recovery.We propose two complementary, interlinked strands of research that will help the government navigate these challenges.The first strand will build a sectoral-regional model of the economy. Our detailed model will incorporate several novel features that will allow to assess the impacts of very specific policy interventions, including financial support targeted to different industries, and relaxing or re-imposing social distancing restrictions in different areas. This will provide real-time, practical guidance to policymakers on the short and long-run impacts of different policies on output, investment, and employment in different sectors and regions of the UK.The second strand of work will estimate a model of consumer behaviour to understand the effects of lockdown on households' spending decisions and living standards. This will allow us to understand how spending patterns change in response to lockdown measures and price changes, and how restricting the availability of goods affects household living standards (including differences across the income distribution).