34 human capital through deteriorating (physical and/or mental) health of survivors.<sup>57</sup> We also do not model the impact of pandemics on mortality. However, in the case of COVID-19, mortality among working-age individuals, although non-zero, is very low,<sup>58</sup> so their influence on the human capital stock is small compared to the impact from the disruption to schooling and experience for large numbers of students and workers.<sup>59</sup> We do not account for the value of, for example, learning or utility from contact with older relatives, those most vulnerable to the virus. We note in addition that over 140 _,_ 000 children have lost a caregiver due to COVID-19 just in the United States.<sup>60</sup> Finally, we only consider first-order effects, for example ignoring the effects of the pandemic on adolescent pregnancy or fertility more generally, as well as the impact of female education on female labor force participation or child human capital outcomes.<sup>61</sup> We also assume a closed economy framework in that there are no economic or human capital spillovers from the HICs to MICs and LICs. To the extent that LICs and MICs rely on demand from HICs for exports, the economic damage to HICs could spill over to less developed economies, something worth exploring in future studies. Lastly, we ignore the indirect effects of human capital on social cohesion and political stability. Integrating all of this in our framework could be a challenging but valuable endeavor.

# **REFERENCES**

Aassve, A., N. Cavalli, L. Mencarini, S. Plach, and M. Livi Bacci, “The COVID-19 pandemic and human fertility,” _Science_ , 2020, _369_ (6502), 370–371. Aassve, Arnstein, Nicol`o Cavalli, Letizia Mencarini, Samuel Plach, and Seth Sanders, “Early assessment of the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and births in high-income countries,” _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_ , 2021, _118_ (36).

Acemoglu, Daron, David H. Autor, and David Lyle, “Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury,” _Journal of Political Economy_ , June 2004, _112_ (3), 497–551. Albanesi, Stefania and Aysegul Sahin, “The gender unemployment gap,” _Review of Economic Dynamics_ , 2018, _30_ , 47–67.

and Jiyeon Kim, “Effects of the COVID-19 Recession on the US Labor Market: Occupation, Family, and Gender,” _Journal of Economic Perspectives_ , August 2021, _35_ (3), 3–24.

> 57There is growing evidence that some COVID-19 patients may have long-term health effects. See, for example, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01693-6, last checked 10/25/2021.

> 58See, for example, Mallapaty (2020), as well as https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/coviddata/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html, last checked 11/11/2021.

59The H1N1 epidemic of 1918-20 was different with peak mortality at age 28 (Gagnon et al., 2013). Thus, in future pandemics, case mortality might be a significant channel of human capital decumulation).

> 60See, for example, https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/more-140000-us-children-lostprimary-or-secondary-caregiver-due-covid-19-pandemic, last checked 11/11/2021.

61Evidence on adolescent pregnancy as well as overall fertility is mixed (e.g., Aassve et al., 2020, 2021; Marquez-Padilla and Saavedra, 2022). While dropping out of school might lead to pregnancy among adolescent girls, school closures and lockdowns also reduced (sexual) contacts between students.