Vaccines as Epidemic Insurance

Mark V. Pauly
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Mark V. Pauly: Department of Health Care Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 208 Colonial Penn Center, 3641 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-8

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between the research for and development of vaccines against global pandemics and insurance. It shows that development in advance of pandemics of a portfolio of effective and government-approved vaccines does have some insurance properties: it requires incurring costs that are certain (the costs of discovering, developing, and testing vaccines) in return for protection against large losses (if a pandemic treatable with one of the vaccines occurs) but also with the possibility of no benefit (from a vaccine against a disease that never reaches the pandemic stage). It then argues that insurance against the latter event might usefully be offered to organizations developing vaccines, and explores the benefits of insurance payments to or on behalf of countries who suffer from unpredictable pandemics. These ideas are then related to recent government, industry, and philanthropic efforts to develop better policies to make vaccines against pandemics available on a timely basis.

Keywords: insurance; vaccines; pandemics; risk; vaccine pricing; mutual insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:11:p:1304-:d:116593

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