Quantifying the social value of a universal COVID-19 vaccine and incentivizing its development

Rachel Glennerster (), Thomas Kelly (), Claire T. McMahon () and Christopher M. Snyder ()
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Rachel Glennerster: University of Chicago
Thomas Kelly: 1Day Sooner
Claire T. McMahon: University of Chicago
Christopher M. Snyder: Dartmouth College

Review of Economic Design, 2024, vol. 28, issue 4, No 5, 723-761

Abstract: Abstract Booster shots for COVID-19 vaccines in the United States have undergone periodic updates to target circulating variants. However, the lengthy process of development, testing, and production has resulted lags between a variant’s initial detection and the corresponding booster's rollout, by which time the booster may no longer match the circulating variant. An innovation with realistic scientific potential—a universal COVID-19 vaccine, effective against existing and future variants—could provide much more value by preempting new variants. Averaged across Monte Carlo simulations, we estimate that, even under conservative assumptions on the arrival rate of variants, a universal COVID-19 vaccine would increase health benefits over variant-specific boosters by more than $900 billion. This social value eclipses the cost of an advance market commitment to incentivize the universal vaccine by several orders of magnitude.

Keywords: Vaccine; COVID-19; Coronavirus; Universal vaccine; Advance market commitment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 I18 L65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10058-024-00363-z

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