The Mechanics of Individually- and Socially-Optimal Decisions during an Epidemic

Guillaume Vandenbroucke

No 2020-013, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Abstract: I present a model where work implies social interactions and the spread of a disease is described by an SIR-type framework. Upon the outbreak of a disease reduced social contacts are decided at the cost of lower consumption. Private individuals do not internalize the effects of their decisions on the evolution of the epidemic while the planner does. Specifically, the planner internalizes that an early reduction in contacts implies fewer infectious in the future and, therefore, a lower risk of infection. This additional (relative to private individuals) benefit of reduced contacts implies that the planner’s solution feature more social distancing early in the epidemics. The planner also internalizes that some infectious eventually recover and contribute further to a lower risk of infection. These mechanisms imply that the planner obtains a flatter infection curve than that generated by private individuals’ responses.

Keywords: SIR model; epidemic; social optimum; social distance; contact rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E1 H1 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2020-06, Revised 2021-09-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Journal Article: The Mechanics of Individually- and Socially-Optimal Decisions during an Epidemic (2022)
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DOI: 10.20955/wp.2020.013

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