To aid the manhunt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, officials asked residents to stay home and business to stay shut in the city of Boston. Joshua Green and Caroline Winter took a look at the economic implications of this:

• As one of America’s most important cities Boston see’s about $1 billion in economic activity every day.
• But shutting down the city doesn’t end all economic activity. Thanks to computers a lot of work continues to go on. Moreover activities such as shopping for groceries that could not happen on the day of the manhunt will simply happen the next day, preserving the economic benefit.
• Some economic activity is lost though, and the value for that lost activity is up to about $333 million.
• One source of commerce that will continue is the trade of donuts. Police officials asked that Dunkin Donuts remained open so that officers had a place to take a snack break.

Read more about the economics of shutting down a city, as well as what New York City and Washington can tell us about the after-effects of a crisis over here.

Source: Businessweek