The political economy of epidemic management
During an infectious-disease epidemic, a political leader imposes “stay-at-home orders” (limiting activity) or “go-out orders” (mandating activity) whenever preferred by the majority of the citizenry over the no-intervention status quo. We characterize the resulting equilibrium epidemic trajectory in an economic-epidemiological model that allows for asymptomatic infection and social-economic complementarities of activity, assuming that citizens are myopic optimizers. We find that the qualitative features of equilibrium policy dynamics hinge critically on whether the pathogen is transmitted before or after infected people have developed symptoms. If transmission only occurs symptomatically, then the leader never imposes stay-at-home orders on the healthy but may impose go-out orders during some phases of the epidemic. However, if transmission occurs asymptomatically, the leader never imposes go-out orders on the healthy.
Duke Scholars
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- Economic Theory
- 3803 Economic theory
- 3801 Applied economics
- 1402 Applied Economics
- 1401 Economic Theory
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Related Subject Headings
- Economic Theory
- 3803 Economic theory
- 3801 Applied economics
- 1402 Applied Economics
- 1401 Economic Theory