The economic consequences of pandemics like the current novel coronavirus outbreak, and of policies to contain their spread, are the subject of three new NBER working papers that are posted on this website. One study examines the lessons from the massive influenza pandemic of 1918-1920, and estimates that it reduced GDP in a typical country by between 6 and 8 percent. Another explores the tradeoff between the severity and timing of suppression of the disease, for example through social distancing, and the progression of the disease in the population. A third outlines the balancing between the economic costs of containment policies — which could include a recession — and the number of lives saved. Earlier NBER studies which have investigated economic and other consequences of previous epidemics are available here.