School closures have been a globally used strategy in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Coen Teulings talks to Tim Phillips about a SIR (Susceptibles-Infected-Recovered) model for the Netherlands, where the recent closure of primary and secondary schools is shown to be counter-productive (as it increases future vulnerability to infection) and hard to reverse (since the increased vulnerability demands continuation). Behavioural economics explains why decision making and the public debate are so distorted, to the detriment of youngsters.

(Source VoxEU/CEPR https://voxeu.org/content/are-school-closures-counterproductive-challenging-conventional-wisdom )