When to release the lockdown: a wellbeing framework for analysing costs and benefits

Richard Layard, Andrew Clark, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Christian Krekel, Daisy Fancourt, Nancy Hey and Gus O'Donnell

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In choosing when to end the lockdown, policy-makers have to balance the impact of the decision upon incomes, unemployment, mental health, public confidence and many other factors, as well as (of course) upon the number of deaths from COVID-19. To facilitate the decision it is helpful to forecast each factor using a single metric. We use as our metric the number of Wellbeing-Years resulting from each date of ending the lockdown. This new metric makes it possible to compare the impact of each factor in a way that is relevant to all public policy decisions.

Keywords: Covid-19; coronavirus; Wellbeing Economics; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Health Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 D61 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-hea, nep-ltv and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/104276/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: When to release the lockdown: A wellbeing framework for analysing costs and benefits (2020)
Working Paper: When to Release the Lockdown? A Wellbeing Framework for Analysing Costs and Benefits (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:104276

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