Optimal Age-based Policies for Pandemics: An Economic Analysis of Covid-19 and Beyond

Luiz Brotherhood, Philipp Kircher, Cezar Santos and Michele Tertilt
Additional contact information
Philipp Kircher: Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium

No 2024012, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: This paper investigates the importance of the age composition for pandemic policy design. To do so, it introduces an economic framework with age heterogeneity, individual choice, and incomplete information, emphasizing the value of testing. Calibrating the model to the US Covid-19 pandemic reveals an 80% reduction in death toll due to voluntary actions and the lockdown implemented in the US. The optimal lockdown, however, is more stringent than what was implemented in the US. Moreover, the social planner follows an asymmetric approach by locking down the young relatively more than the old. We underscore the importance of testing, showing its impact on reduced deaths, lower economic costs and laxer lockdown. We use the framework to provide systematic insights into pandemics caused by different viruses (among others the Spanish flu), and underline the influence of economic conditions on optimal policies.

Keywords: Covid-19; testing; social distancing; age; age-specific policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 D62 E17 I10 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 82
Date: 2024-06-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-inv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/en/object/bore ... tastream/PDF_01/view (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2024012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) Voie du Roman Pays 34, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alain GILLIS ().