Keynesian Production Networks and the COVID-19 Crisis: A Simple Benchmark

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis is a seemingly all-encompassing shock to supply and demand. These negative shocks affected industries differently: some switched to remote work, maintaining employment and production, while others reduced capacity and shed workers. We consider a stripped-down version of the model in Baqaee and Farhi (2020). The model allows for an arbitrary input-output network, complementarities, incomplete markets, downward wage rigidity, and a zero lower bound. Nevertheless, the model has a stark property: factor income shares at the initial equilibrium are global sufficient statistics for the production network, clarifying assumptions that must be broken if the network is to matter.