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Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparing Alternative Value Frameworks

Author

Listed:
  • Ferranna, Maddalena

    (University of Southern California)

  • Sevilla, J.P.

    (Harvard School of Public Health)

  • Bloom, David E.

    (Harvard School of Public Health)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to make difficult ethical choices, e.g., how to balance public health and socioeconomic activity and whom to prioritize in allocating vaccines or other scarce medical resources. We discuss the implications of benefit-cost analysis, utilitarianism, and prioritarianism in evaluating COVID-19-related policies. The relative regressivity of COVID-19 burdens and control policy costs determines whether increased sensitivity to distribution supports more or less aggressive control policies. Utilitarianism and prioritarianism, in that order, increasingly favor income redistribution mechanisms compared with benefit-cost analysis. The concern for the worse-off implies that prioritarianism is more likely than utilitarianism or benefit-cost analysis to target young and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals in the allocation of scarce vaccine doses.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferranna, Maddalena & Sevilla, J.P. & Bloom, David E., 2021. "Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparing Alternative Value Frameworks," IZA Discussion Papers 14181, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14181
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fernando E. Alvarez & David Argente & Francesco Lippi, 2020. "A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lockdown," NBER Working Papers 26981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Adler, Matthew D. & Ferranna, Maddalena & Hammitt, James K. & Treich, Nicolas, 2021. "Fair innings? The utilitarian and prioritarian value of risk reduction over a whole lifetime," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    3. Martin F. Quaas & Jasper N. Meya & Hanna Schenk & Björn Bos & Moritz A. Drupp & Till Requate, 2020. "The Social Cost of Contacts: Theory and Evidence for the Covid-19 Pandemic in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 8347, CESifo.
    4. Megan O’Driscoll & Gabriel Ribeiro Dos Santos & Lin Wang & Derek A. T. Cummings & Andrew S. Azman & Juliette Paireau & Arnaud Fontanet & Simon Cauchemez & Henrik Salje, 2021. "Age-specific mortality and immunity patterns of SARS-CoV-2," Nature, Nature, vol. 590(7844), pages 140-145, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Thoma, Johanna, 2021. "Weighing the costs and benefits of public policy: on the dangers of single metric accounting," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112689, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Kniesner, Thomas J. & Viscusi, W. Kip, 2023. "Promoting Equity through Equitable Risk Tradeoffs," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 8-34, March.
    3. Enza Simeone, 2024. "Assessing the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on wellbeing: a comparison between CBA and SWF approaches for policies evaluation," Working Papers 662, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    prioritarianism; benefit-cost analysis; utilitarianism; COVID-19; vaccine allocation; lockdown; control policies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

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