Awareness of pandemics and the impact of COVID-19

Alejandro Buesa, Javier Pérez and Daniel Santabárbara

No 2123, Working Papers from Banco de España

Abstract: “Awareness” about the occurrence of viral infectious (or other) tail risks can influence their socioeconomic inter-temporal impacts. A branch of the literature finds that prior lifetime exposure to signicant shocks can affect people and societies, i.e. by changing their perceived probability about the occurrence of an extreme, negative shock in the future. In this paper we proxy “awareness” by historical exposure of a country to epidemics, and other catastrophic events. We show that in a large cross-section of more tan 150 countries, more “aware” societies suffered a less intense impact of the COVID-19 disease, in terms of loss of lives and, to some extent, economic damage.

Keywords: socioeconomic impact of pandemics; global health crises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E43 F41 N10 N30 N40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2021-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-his and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Awareness of pandemics and the impact of COVID-19 (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bde:wpaper:2123

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