It's a paper on epidemiology, that utilizes econometric thinking. I understand the theoretician / empiricist divide very well. But I chose this paper to illustrate because it is very clearly aiming to impact immediate policy (it states this in the abstract). Furthermore it is not trying to create fundamental new theoretical models... but rather provide a justification for why lockdown is economically justified.

I hate to be the one to say this -- but most of modern economics is crap, given how reflexive it is. People know how the fed acts -- they know how policy makers act. The models don't take into account this reflexivity.

Someone like George Soros is a thousand times more savvy on how the economy works than post-docs publishing econometrics papers for $40k a year.