The Economic Consequences of R = 1: Towards a Workable Behavioural Epidemiological Model of Pandemics

Authors

  • Joshua S. Gans Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and NBER

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/rea.v14i1.4786

Keywords:

Pandemic, SIR, Behavioural Models of Pandemics

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on incorporating behavioural elements into epidemiological models of pandemics. While modelling behaviour by forward-looking rational agents can provide some insight into the time paths of pandemics, the non-stationary nature of Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) models of viral spread makes characterisation of resulting equilibria difficult. Here I posit a shortcut that can be deployed to allow for a tractable equilibrium model of pandemics with intuitive comparative statics and also a clear prediction that effective reproduction numbers (that is, R) will tend towards 1 in equilibrium. This motivates taking R = 1 as an equilibrium starting point for analyses of pandemics with behavioural agents. The implications of this for the analysis of widespread testing, tracing, isolation and mask-use is discussed.

Downloads

Published

2022-04-10

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Public Policy Lessons conference - special issue

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Joshua S. Gans

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The Review of Economic Analysis is committed to the open exchange of ideas and information. 

Unlike traditional print journals which require the author to relinquish copyright to the publisher, The Review of Economic Analysis requires that authors release their work under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license. This license allows anyone to copy, distribute and transmit the work provided the use is non-commercial and appropriate attribution is given. 

A 'human-readable' summary of the licence is here and the full legal text is here.