IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13186.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When to Release the Lockdown? A Wellbeing Framework for Analysing Costs and Benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Layard, Richard

    (London School of Economics)

  • Clark, Andrew E.

    (Paris School of Economics)

  • De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel

    (University of Oxford)

  • Krekel, Christian

    (London School of Economics)

  • Fancourt, Daisy

    (University College London)

  • Hey, Nancy

    (What Works Centre for Wellbeing)

  • O'Donnell, Gus

    (House of Lords)

Abstract

It is politicians who have to decide when to release the lockdown, and in what way. In doing so, they have to balance many considerations (as with any decision). Often the different considerations appear incommensurable so that only the roughest of judgements can be made. For example, in the case of COVID-19, one has to compare the economic benefits of releasing the lockdown with the social and psychological benefits, and then compare the total of these with the increase in deaths that would result from an early exit. We here propose a way of doing this more systematically.

Suggested Citation

  • Layard, Richard & Clark, Andrew E. & De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Krekel, Christian & Fancourt, Daisy & Hey, Nancy & O'Donnell, Gus, 2020. "When to Release the Lockdown? A Wellbeing Framework for Analysing Costs and Benefits," IZA Discussion Papers 13186, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13186.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2020. "Inequality in the impact of the coronavirus shock: Evidence from real time surveys," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    2. Adams-Prassl, A. & Boneva, T. & Golin, M & Rauh, C., 2020. "Inequality in the Impact of the Coronavirus Shock: New Survey Evidence for the UK," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2023, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    3. Oswald, Andrew J. & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2020. "The Case for Releasing the Young from Lockdown: A Briefing Paper for Policymakers," IZA Discussion Papers 13113, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Andrew E. Clark & Sarah Flèche & Richard Layard & Powdthavee Nattavudh, 2018. "The Origins of Happiness: The Science of Well-Being over the Life Course," Post-Print halshs-01631510, HAL.
    5. Rehdanz, Katrin & Maddison, David, 2008. "Local environmental quality and life-satisfaction in Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 787-797, February.
    6. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & George Ward & Femke De Keulenaer & Bert Van Landeghem & Georgios Kavetsos & Michael I. Norton, 2018. "The Asymmetric Experience of Positive and Negative Economic Growth: Global Evidence Using Subjective Well-Being Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 362-375, May.
    7. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2008. "Relative Income, Happiness, and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 95-144, March.
    8. Paul Dolan, 2011. "Using Happiness to Value Health," Monograph 000176, Office of Health Economics.
    9. Dolan, Paul & Jenkins, Pinar, 2020. "Estimating the monetary value of the deaths prevented from the UK Covid-19 lockdown when it was decided upon -- and the value of "flattening the curve"," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 104355, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Layard, Richard & Clark, Andrew E. & De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Krekel, Christian & Fancourt, Daisy & Hey, Nancy & O'Donnell, Gus, 2020. "When to release the lockdown: a wellbeing framework for analysing costs and benefits," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 104276, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Heinz Welsch, 2024. "Household Sector Carbon Pricing, Revenue Rebating, and Subjective Well-Being: A Dollar is not a Dollar," Working Papers V-444-24, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2024.
    3. Andrew E. Clark & Anthony Lepinteur, 2022. "Pandemic Policy and Life Satisfaction in Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(2), pages 393-408, June.
    4. Martial Foucault & Vincenzo Galasso, 2020. "Working After Covid-19: Cross-Country Evidence from Real-Time Survey Data," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03455860, HAL.
    5. Foliano, Francesca & Tonei, Valentina & Sevilla, Almudena, 2024. "Social restrictions, leisure and well-being," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. Jung, Haeil & Kim, Jun Hyung & Hong, Gihyeon, 2023. "Impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on single-person households in South Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5cmk499mce8lvosvi0jdis0dla is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jemey, Nursyuhada binti & Kasim, Nor Hasniah binti, 2023. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Consumption Patterns Among Malaysian Youths," MPRA Paper 118841, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Sep 2023.
    9. Sonia OREFICCE & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 261-287, June.
    10. Can Sever & Emekcan Yucel, 2021. "Electoral Cycles in Inequality Abstract:," Working Papers 2021/01, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    11. Adermon, Adrian & Laun, Lisa & Lind, Patrik & Olsson, Martin & Sauermann, Jan & Sjögren , Anna, 2022. "Earnings losses and the role of the welfare state during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Sweden," Working Paper Series 2022:20, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    12. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Cuong Viet Nguyen, 2024. "Agricultural Production as a Coping Strategy during the Covid-19 Pandemic? Evidence from Rural Viet Nam," Working Papers DP-2023-23, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    13. Binder, Martin & Coad, Alex, 2013. "“I'm afraid I have bad news for you…” Estimating the impact of different health impairments on subjective well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 155-167.
    14. Ayllón, Sara, 2022. "Online teaching and gender bias," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    15. Oksana Kazak & Tetyana Obelets, 2022. "Remote Employment: A Short-Term Strategy For Adapting To The Crisis Or The New Reality Of Human Resource Management," Baltic Journal of Economic Studies, Publishing house "Baltija Publishing", vol. 8(2).
    16. Aina, Carmen & Brunetti, Irene & Mussida, Chiara & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2021. "Even more discouraged? The NEET generation at the age of COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 863, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Fukai, Taiyo & Ikeda, Masato & Kawaguchi, Daiji & Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2023. "COVID-19 and the employment gender gap in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Zhang, Xin & Zhang, Xiaobo & Chen, Xi, 2017. "Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 81-94.
    19. Hodbod, Alexander & Hommes, Cars & Huber, Stefanie J. & Salle, Isabelle, 2021. "The COVID-19 consumption game-changer: Evidence from a large-scale multi-country survey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    20. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D’Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2021. "The fall in income inequality during COVID-19 in four European countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(3), pages 489-507, September.
    21. Alejandra Bellatin & Gabriela Galassi, 2022. "What COVID-19 May Leave Behind: Technology-Related Job Postings in Canada," Staff Working Papers 22-17, Bank of Canada.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    well-being; COVID-19; lockdown;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    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:iza:izadps:dp13186. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.