Propagation of Epidemics' Economic Impacts via Production Networks : The Cases of China and ASEAN during SARS and COVID-19

Two decades after the SARS outbreak, Asia is confronted with COVID-19 which has caused a greater economic impact to the region. In this paper, using China and the ASEAN's experiences of SARS and COVID-19 as a case study, we aim to identify the economic impact of a pandemic that is associated with global production linkages. We construct a novel general equilibrium model of production networks with epidemiological dynamics. Calibrating the model with the OECD inter-country input-output tables for the pre-SARS and pre-COVID-19 periods, and controlling for disease dynamics across years, we find that, in the absence of policy intervention, greater importance of China in the global value chains is associated with greater economic impacts, both within China and in the ASEAN region. Our sensitivity analyses further show that China's containment efforts reduce the spillover effects to the ASEAN