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Guiding Covid policy: cost-benefit analysis and beyond

Jonathan Aldred

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2022, vol. 46, issue 3, 589-608

Abstract: Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is inappropriate as an aid to Covid policy-making because the plural, incommensurable values at stake are not all amenable to monetary measurement. CBA for Covid policy is also undermined by pervasive uncertainty and ignorance, and has some troubling distributional implications. However, non-consequentialist alternatives to CBA tend towards implausibly absolutist prohibitions on risk imposition. Arguments for setting aside consequentialism for special circumstances (the precautionary principle, or a medical rule of rescue) are also problematic when applied to Covid policy. A broad consequentialist approach to policy guidance is defended, one which does not demand commensuration on a common monetary scale. Despite the absence of commensuration, policy guidance is still possible.

Keywords: Covid; Coronavirus; Cost-benefit analysis; Consequentialism; Precautionary principle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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