The Impact of the Ebola Crisis on Mortality and Welfare in Liberia

Shaun Da Costa

No 1911, Working Papers from Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp

Abstract: This paper assesses the welfare impacts of the 2014 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia, focusing on changes in age and sex specific mortality rates. The first part of the paper derives a survival function for a counterfactual no-EVD scenario, using mortality data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). This counterfactual survival function is then compared with the actual survival function in 2014 to estimate the change in survival conditions due to EVD. Next, the impact of this change on individual and total welfare is assessed using a marginal willingness to pay approach applied to data from the Liberian Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). The results suggest that the total welfare costs of EVD-related mortality range between $2.5 to $4 billion, depending on the estimate of the survival probabilities adopted. Finally, the robustness of these results is tested using different preference parameter calibrations.

Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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