Economics is Helpful

Byron B. Carson, III ()

Chapter Chapter 4 in Challenging Malaria, 2023, pp 49-61 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter clarifies the economic way of thinking and argues it is a discipline uniquely capable of understanding individual- and collective-level choices and responses to infectious diseases. That is, economics clarifies the myriad choices people face given their values and opportunities. The growing literature on economic epidemiology, for example, suggests that people voluntarily change their potentially infectious and preventative behaviors as prevalence and mortality rates change. Such logic applies to individual responses to HIV/AIDS and influenza epidemics, measles outbreaks, and, most importantly for this book, vector-borne diseases like malaria. Historical examples of responsiveness to malaria are discussed to add context. This chapter also clarifies these economic insights by presenting a formal, economic model of an individual’s choice to sleep under bed nets. Ultimately, this chapter critiques such approaches and finds them wanting only because they have not been advanced to clarify collective action problems.

Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-39510-9_4

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-39510-9_4

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