The Covid-19 crisis has provided many grim examples of some familiar problems in health economics and cost-benefit analysis, and of the ‘tragic choices’ that sometimes need to be made.
The seminal work on epidemiological models was carried out in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The models have developed substantially since then, but their key drivers are still essentially those discovered nearly a century ago.
This paper argues that testing participation – and not testing capacity – is the biggest obstacle to a successful “test and isolate” strategy, as recently proposed by Paul Romer.
Pandemics are a recurring feature of human history. In the modern world, since the 1770s, we have had a series of pandemics, with a series of cholera ones in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and a series of five influenza ones since 1890.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious challenge for societies around the world. In response to it not only individuals are changing their behaviour, but also governments are taking various policy actions.
A ban on opening a new supermarket is evidence that people want a new supermarket, for if they did not there would be no need for a ban. The same is true of chlorinated chicken, gambling machines and many other products and activities that we are told need to be banned or restricted.
This study calculates how much UK foreign aid was spent (in 2018 prices) on lifestyle interventions targeting smoking, drinking, eating and sedentary behaviour.UK taxpayers spent £44.6million on ‘nanny state’ foreign aid projects between 2005 and 2018, spread over 35 projects in 47 countries. The three biggest recipients were China (£7.9million), India (£2.2 million) and Colombia (£1.8 million).