IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ijecbs/v29y2022i1p1-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Covid-19 Lockdown Cost/Benefits: A Critical Assessment of the Literature

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas W. Allen

Abstract

An examination of over 100 Covid-19 studies reveals that many relied on false assumptions that over-estimated the benefits and under-estimated the costs of lockdown. The most recent research has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid-19 deaths. Generally speaking, the ineffectiveness stemmed from individual changes in behavior: either non-compliance or behavior that mimicked lockdowns. The limited effectiveness of lockdowns explains why, after more than one year, the unconditional cumulative Covid-19 deaths per million is not negatively correlated with the stringency of lockdown across countries. Using a method proposed by Professor Bryan Caplan along with estimates of lockdown benefits based on the econometric evidence, I calculate a number of cost/benefit ratios of lockdowns in terms of life-years saved. Using a mid-point estimate for costs and benefits, the reasonable estimate for Canada is a cost/benefit ratio of 141. It is possible that lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in modern history.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas W. Allen, 2022. "Covid-19 Lockdown Cost/Benefits: A Critical Assessment of the Literature," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 1-32, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ijecbs:v:29:y:2022:i:1:p:1-32
    DOI: 10.1080/13571516.2021.1976051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13571516.2021.1976051
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13571516.2021.1976051?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Qi & Yuan, Zhiting & Tao, Ran, 2024. "The political economy of COVID-19 in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. López-Mendoza, Héctor & González-Álvarez, María A. & Montañés, Antonio, 2024. "Assessing the effectiveness of international government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    3. Changcheng Kan & Qiwei Ma & Zhaoya Gong & Yuanjing Qi & Anrong Dang, 2022. "The Recovery of China’s Industrial Parks in the First Wave of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-15, November.
    4. Phoenix K. H. Mo & Yanqiu Yu & Mason M. C. Lau & Rachel H. Y. Ling & Joseph T. F. Lau, 2023. "Time to Lift up COVID-19 Restrictions? Public Support towards Living with the Virus Policy and Associated Factors among Hong Kong General Public," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Gabriele Beccari & Matilde Giaccherini & Joanna Kopinska & Gabriele Rovigatti, 2023. "Refueling a Quiet Fire: Old Truthers and New Discontent in the Wake of Covid-19," CESifo Working Paper Series 10803, CESifo.
    6. Faisal, Sabah MohamadReza & Salari, Taghi Ebrahimi & Adibian, Mohammad Sadegh, 2024. "What is the effect of the 2008 economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic crisis on oil consumption in selected OECD countries?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    7. Makridis, Christos A., 2022. "When houses of worship go empty: The effects of state restrictions on well-being among religious adherents," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    8. Trunschke, Markus & Peters, Bettina & Czarnitzki, Dirk & Rammer, Christian, 2024. "Pandemic effects: Do innovation activities of firms suffer from Long COVID?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(7).
    9. Krzysztof Drachal & Daniel González Cortés, 2022. "Estimation of Lockdowns’ Impact on Well-Being in Selected Countries: An Application of Novel Bayesian Methods and Google Search Queries Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, December.
    10. Claudio Thieme & Víctor Giménez & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2023. "Health vs. Wealth: A Cross-country Analysis of Managerial Effectiveness of the COVID-19," Working Papers 2023/10, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    11. Nicholas Biddle & Matthew Gray & Ian McAllister, 2024. "Federalism and Confidence in Australian Governments During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 54(2), pages 257-282.
    12. Wilson, Matthew S., 2023. "Social contact in a pandemic: Rationality vs. heuristics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 159-177.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ijecbs:v:29:y:2022:i:1:p:1-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIJB20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.