EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Pandemics, public policy, and Peltzman effects

Alexander Dietrich (), Wilhelm Kohler () and Gernot Müller ()
Additional contact information
Alexander Dietrich: Danmarks Nationalbank
Wilhelm Kohler: University of Tübingen
Gernot Müller: University of Tübingen

Economic Theory, 2025, vol. 79, issue 3, No 5, 889-910

Abstract: Abstract Against the backdrop of Covid-19, we study the effectiveness of public policies typically employed to fight an epidemic. We extend the compartmental SIR model to explore the trade-offs which govern individual behavior. Our stylized model allows for a closed form analysis of vaccination and lockdown policies. We establish Peltzman effects: as policies lower the risk of infections, people become more socially active, which—in turn—undermines their effectiveness. We detect patterns in data for both US states and countries in Western Europe that are consistent with the notion that such effects are shaping actual infection dynamics to a considerable extent.

Keywords: Pandemic; Behavioral adjustment; SIR model; Risk compensation; Lockdowns; Vaccinations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00199-024-01605-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:joecth:v:79:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-024-01605-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... eory/journal/199/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00199-024-01605-5

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Theory is currently edited by Nichoals Yanneils

More articles in Economic Theory from Springer, Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-04-23
Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:79:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-024-01605-5