IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aim/wpaimx/2128.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Environment, public debt and epidemics

Author

Abstract

We study whether fiscal policies, especially public debt, can help to curb the macroeconomic and health consequences of epidemics. Our approach is based on three main features: we introduce the dynamics of epidemics in an overlapping generations model to take into account that old people are more vulnerable; people are more easily infected when pollution is high; public spending and public debt can be used to tackle the effects of epidemics. We show that fiscal policies can promote the convergence to a stable steady state with no epidemics. When public policies are not able to permanently eradicate the epidemic, public debt and income transfers could reduce the number of infected people and increase capital and GDP per capita. As a prerequisite, pollution intensity should not be too high. Finally, we define a household subsidy policy which eliminates income and welfare inequalities between healthy and infected individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Marion Davin & Mouez Fodha & Thomas Seegmuller, 2021. "Environment, public debt and epidemics," AMSE Working Papers 2128, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
  • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2128
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.amse-aixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/working_papers/wp_2021_-_nr_28.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric S. Coker & Laura Cavalli & Enrico Fabrizi & Gianni Guastella & Enrico Lippo & Maria Laura Parisi & Nicola Pontarollo & Massimiliano Rizzati & Alessandro Varacca & Sergio Vergalli, 2020. "The Effects of Air Pollution on COVID-19 Related Mortality in Northern Italy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 611-634, August.
    2. Kocherlakota, Narayana R., 1992. "Bubbles and constraints on debt accumulation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 245-256.
    3. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu, 2020. "Infectious diseases, human capital and economic growth," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(1), pages 1-47, July.
    4. Woodford, Michael, 1986. "Stationary sunspot equilibria in a finance constrained economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 128-137, October.
    5. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Fabbri, Giorgio & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Prevention and mitigation of epidemics: Biodiversity conservation and confinement policies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    6. Leo Kaas & Leopold Thadden, 2004. "Budgetary policy and unemployment dynamics in an olg model with collective bargaining," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(498), pages 867-889, October.
    7. Glover, Andrew & Heathcote, Jonathan & Krueger, Dirk & Ríos-Rull, José-Víctor, 2023. "Health versus wealth: On the distributional effects of controlling a pandemic," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 34-59.
    8. Boucekkine, Raouf & Laffargue, Jean-Pierre, 2010. "On the distributional consequences of epidemics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 231-245, February.
    9. Rust, G. & Melbourne, M. & Truman, B.I. & Daniels, E. & Fry-Johnson, Y. & Curtin, T., 2009. "Role of the primary care safety net in pandemic influenza," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(S2), pages 316-323.
    10. Goenka, Aditya & Liu, Lin & Nguyen, Manh-Hung, 2021. "SIR economic epidemiological models with disease induced mortality," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Raouf Boucekkine & Rodolphe Desbordes & Hélène Latzer, 2009. "How do epidemics induce behavioral changes?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 233-264, September.
    12. Chang, H.-J. & Huang, N. & Lee, C.-H. & Hsu, Y.-J. & Hsieh, C.-J. & Chou, Y.-J., 2004. "The Impact of the SARS Epidemic on the Utilization of Medical Services: SARS and the Fear of SARS," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(4), pages 562-564.
    13. Momota, Akira & Tabata, Ken & Futagami, Koichi, 2005. "Infectious disease and preventive behavior in an overlapping generations model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1673-1700, October.
    14. Rui Coimbra & Teresa Lloyd-Braga & Leonor Modesto, 2005. "Endogenous fluctuations in unionized economies with productive externalities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(3), pages 629-649, October.
    15. Chakraborty, Shankha & Papageorgiou, Chris & Pérez Sebastián, Fidel, 2010. "Diseases, infection dynamics, and development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 859-872, October.
    16. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Fabbri, Giorgio & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Prevention and mitigation of epidemics: Biodiversity conservation and confinement policies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    17. Ingo E. Isphording & Nico Pestel, 2021. "Pandemic Meets Pollution: Poor Air Quality Increases Deaths by COVID-19," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_262, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    18. Stefano BOSI & David DESMARCHELIER & Manh Hung NGUYEN, 2017. "Biodiversity, infectious diseases and the dilution effect," Working Papers of BETA 2017-23, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    19. Isphording, Ingo E. & Pestel, Nico, 2021. "Pandemic meets pollution: Poor air quality increases deaths by COVID-19," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    20. Luiz Brotherhood & Philipp Kircher & Cezar Santos & Michèle Tertilt, 2020. "An Economic Model of the Covid-19 Epidemic: The Importance of Testing and Age-Specific Policies," CESifo Working Paper Series 8316, CESifo.
    21. Matthew Cole & Eric Neumayer, 2006. "The impact of poor health on total factor productivity," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(6), pages 918-938.
    22. Martin S Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo & Mathias Trabandt, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Epidemics [Economic activity and the spread of viral diseases: Evidence from high frequency data]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5149-5187.
    23. Goenka, Aditya & Liu, Lin & Nguyen, Manh-Hung, 2014. "Infectious diseases and economic growth," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 34-53.
    24. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu, 2012. "Infectious diseases and endogenous fluctuations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(1), pages 125-149, May.
    25. Xenia Scheil-Adlung & Lydia Sandner, 2010. "Evidence on paid sick leave: Observations in times of crisis," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 45(5), pages 313-321, September.
    26. William Brock & Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2020. "The Economy, Climate Change and Infectious Diseases: Links and Policy Implications," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 811-824, August.
    27. Chakraborty, Shankha & Papageorgiou, Chris & Sebastián, Fidel Pérez, 2016. "Health Cycles And Health Transitions," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 189-213, January.
    28. Tetsuo Ono, 2007. "Unemployment dynamics in an OLG economy with public pensions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(3), pages 549-577, December.
    29. Brotherhood, Luiz & Kircher, Philipp & Santos, Cezar & Tertilt, Michèle, 2020. "An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 14695, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    30. Matthew A Cole & Ceren Ozgen & Eric Strobl, 2020. "Air Pollution Exposure and Covid-19," Discussion Papers 20-13, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    31. Brotherhood, Luiz & Kircher, Philipp & Santos, Cezar & Tertilt, Michèle, 2020. "An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 14695, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    32. Augier, Laurent & Yaly, Amy, 2013. "Economic growth and disease in the OLG model: The HIV/AIDS case," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 471-481.
    33. Geoffard, Pierre-Yves & Philipson, Tomas, 1997. "Disease Eradication: Private versus Public Vaccination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 222-230, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Gori, Luca & Manfredi, Piero & Marsiglio, Simone & Sodini, Mauro, 2023. "A parsimonious model of optimal social distancing and vaccination during an outbreak," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1263, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Rabah Amir & Raouf Boucekkine, 2023. "Epidemics, vaccines, and health policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(6), pages 1143-1148, December.
    3. Cavalli, Fausto & Naimzada, Ahmad & Visetti, Daniela, 2024. "Dynamical analysis of healthcare policy effects in an integrated economic-epidemiological model," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 315-336.
    4. Dugan, Anna & Prskawetz, Alexia & Raffin, Natacha, 2022. "The Environment, Life Expectancy and Growth in Overlapping Generations Models: A Survey," ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy 01/2022, TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit.
    5. Thuilliez, Josselin & Touré, Nouhoum, 2024. "Opinions and vaccination during an epidemic," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    6. Nicolas Clootens & Francesco Magris, 2024. "Nonrenewable resource use sustainability and public debt," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 26(1), February.
    7. Alm James & Barreto Raul A., 2024. "Trust in Government in a Changing World: Shocks, Tax Evasion, and Economic Growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 439-487, January.
    8. Josselin Thuilliez & Nouhoum Touré, 2024. "Opinions and vaccination during an epidemic," Post-Print hal-04490900, HAL.
    9. Camacho, Carmen & Vasilakis, Chrysovalantis, 2023. "Transmissible Diseases, Vaccination and Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 16504, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Josselin Thuilliez & Nouhoum Touré, 2024. "Opinions and vaccination during an epidemic," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-04490900, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marion Davin & Mouez Fodha & Thomas Seegmuller, 2021. "Environment, public debt and epidemics," AMSE Working Papers 2128, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. David E. Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2022. "Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 85-131, March.
    3. Guimarães, Luís, 2021. "Antibody tests: They are more important than we thought," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Boucekkine, Raouf & Chakraborty, Shankha & Goenka, Aditya & Liu, Lin, 2024. "Economic epidemiological modelling: A progress report," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    5. Luca Gori & Cristiana Mammana & Piero Manfredi & Elisabetta Michetti, 2022. "Economic development with deadly communicable diseases and public prevention," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(5), pages 912-943, October.
    6. d’Albis, Hippolyte & Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle, 2021. "Optimal prevention and elimination of infectious diseases," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    7. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Kaustav Das & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Learning or habit formation? Optimal timing of lockdown for disease containment," Discussion Papers 20-17, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    8. Raouf Boucekkine & Shankha Chakraborty & Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu, 2024. "A Brief Tour of Economic Epidemiology Modelling," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2024002, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    9. Bandyopadhyay, Siddhartha & Chatterjee, Kalyan & Das, Kaustav & Roy, Jaideep, 2021. "Learning versus habit formation: Optimal timing of lockdown for disease containment," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. La Torre, Davide & Liuzzi, Danilo & Marsiglio, Simone, 2021. "Epidemics and macroeconomic outcomes: Social distancing intensity and duration," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Goenka, Aditya & Liu, Lin & Nguyen, Manh-Hung, 2021. "SIR economic epidemiological models with disease induced mortality," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    12. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu & Manh-Hung Nguyen, 2021. "Modeling optimal quarantines with waning immunity," Discussion Papers 21-10, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    13. Bognanni, Mark & Hanley, Doug & Kolliner, Daniel & Mitman, Kurt, 2020. "Economics and Epidemics: Evidence from an Estimated Spatial Econ-SIR Model," IZA Discussion Papers 13797, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Daron Acemoglu & Ali Makhdoumi & Azarakhsh Malekian & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2024. "Testing, Voluntary Social Distancing, and the Spread of an Infection," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 72(2), pages 533-548, March.
    15. Bisin, Alberto & Moro, Andrea, 2022. "Spatial‐SIR with network structure and behavior: Lockdown rules and the Lucas critique," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 370-388.
    16. Tsutomu Watanabe & Tomoyoshi Yabu, 2021. "Japan’s voluntary lockdown: further evidence based on age-specific mobile location data," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 333-370, July.
    17. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Chengdai Huang & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Testing and Reopening in an SEIR Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 1-21, January.
    18. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Chengdai Huang & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Testing and Reopening in an SEIR Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 1-21, January.
    19. Alberto Bisin & Andrea Moro, 2020. "Learning Epidemiology by Doing: The Empirical Implications of a Spatial-SIR Model with Behavioral Responses," NBER Working Papers 27590, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Timo Boppart & Karl Harmenberg & John Hassler & Per Krusell & Jonna Olsson, 2020. "Integrated Epi-Econ Assessment," NBER Working Papers 28282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    epidemics; pollution; overlapping generations; public debt;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • Q59 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:aim:wpaimx:2128. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Gregory Cornu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/amseafr.html .

    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.