Health vs. Economy: Politically Optimal Pandemic Policy

Desierto, Desiree; Koyama, Mark

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3661650

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Even where these disruptions were less than elsewhere, in the short term the effect was inevitably negative as compared to the pre-pandemic economic and societal statusquo. Once the public health measures were adopted, changes in economic well-being were instantly measurable at both individual and societal levels (Deb et al, 2020;Desierto and Koyama 2020;Pulejo and Querubin 2020). Meanwhile, the pandemic health toll in the period under review was near-catastrophic in only a few subnational jurisdictions globally, and so credit for the health benefits was hard to claim.…”

Section: Exploring Variation Across Federal States: the Role Of Political Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Federal Institutions and Strategic Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2021

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This essay examines the policy response of the federal and regional governments in federations to the COVID-19 crisis. We theorize that the COVID-19 policy response in federations is an outcome of strategic interaction among the federal and regional incumbents in the shadow of their varying accountability for health and the repercussions from the disruptive consequences of public health measures. Using the data from the COVID-19 Public Health Protective Policy Index Project, we study how the variables suggested by our theory correlate with the overall stringency of public health measures in federations as well as the contribution of the federal government to the making of these policies. Our results suggest that the public health measures taken in federations are at least as stringent as those in non-federations, and there is a cluster of federations on which a bulk of crisis policy making is carried by subnational governments. We find that the contribution of the federal government is, on average, higher in parliamentary systems; it appears to decline with the proximity of the next election in presidential republics, and to increase with the fragmentation of the legislative party system in parliamentary systems. Our analysis also suggests that when the federal government carries a significant share of responsibility for healthcare provision, it also tends to play a higher role in taking non-medical steps in response to the pandemic.

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Section: Exploring Variation Across Federal States: the Role Of Political Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Federal Institutions and Strategic Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2021

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“…The work ofDesierto and Koyama (2020) clarifies why the politically optimal pandemic policy may not be the socially optimal one using a formal model;Boettke and Powell (2021) explain the challenge of designing and implementing optimal pandemic policy from the perspective of information and incentive problems confronting political decision-makers.…”

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confidence: 99%

Pandemics, economic freedom, and institutional trade-offs

Geloso

2021

Eur J Law Econ

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We argue that institutions are bundles that involve trade-offs in the government's ability to provide public goods that affect public health. We hypothesize that the institutions underlying economic freedom affect the mix of diseases by reducing diseases of poverty relative to diseases of commerce (those associated with free movement of people, such as smallpox or COVID-19). We focus on smallpox and typhoid fever in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in order to build on recent work that make arguments similar to ours, especially the framework Werner Troesken sets forth in The Pox of Liberty. Our evidence shows that economic freedom, in multiple periods of time and settings prior to the eradication of smallpox in the second half of the twentieth century, reduced typhoid mortality but had no effect on smallpox deaths. The implication for COVID-19 is that the trade-off between fighting the pandemic and preserving economic freedom may not be too severe in the short run. However, in the long run, the wealth benefits from economic freedom are likely to be crucial in reducing vulnerability to diseases of commerce primarily from their impact on comorbidities (such as diabetes and heart disease). Thus, economic freedom is on balance good for public health, which suggests that it, while requiring trade-offs, might be the best institutional bundle for dealing with pandemics.

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Health vs. Economy: Politically Optimal Pandemic Policy

Cited by 2 publications

References 19 publications

Federal Institutions and Strategic Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic

Federal Institutions and Strategic Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic

Pandemics, economic freedom, and institutional trade-offs

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