Pandemic, Crisis and Intervention

Abstract

This article aims to explain the economic consequences of a pandemic, a circumstance in which the advent of the crisis is not endogenously induced by the financial system. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first one will be focused on the effects that a contagious and deadly disease has on the economic agents' valuation scale and on their time preference and how this is responsible for distorting the productive structure and giving rise to an economic crisis. Then, we will analyze the most common types of intervention in times of pandemic, such as quarantine, maximum price setting, bailing out companies and subsidies to certain agents. In this way, it is intended to explain how the use of these policies end up aggravating the tragedy and how the State should act in this scenario.