Are better vaccines really better? The case of a simple stochastic epidemic SIR model

Nicolas Houy

Economics Bulletin, 2013, vol. 33, issue 1, 207-216

Abstract: We consider a model of vaccine market where the buyer is centralized and shows an endogenous demand function based on a simple stochastic SIR model. When the seller is a monopoly, we show that better vaccines (in the sense of greater efficiency or inducing less side-effects) do not imply greater total surplus, greater buyer surplus or even greater profits. Since we consider a centralized buyer, our results cannot be caused by the well-known epidemiological externality of vaccination.

Keywords: Vaccines; Market structure; Monopoly; Epidemiology; SIR model. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01-23
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2013/Volume33/EB-13-V33-I1-P20.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Are better vaccines really better? The case of a simple stochastic epidemic SIR model (2013)
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:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00021

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().