On Coase and COVID-19

From an epidemiological perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis. From an economic perspective, it is an externality and a social cost. Strikingly, almost all economic policy to address the infection externality has been formulated within a Pigovian analysis of implicit taxes and subsidies directed by a social planner drawing on social cost-benefit analysis. In this paper we examine the alternative economic methodology of the externality. We seek to understand how an exchange-focused and institutional analysis provides a better understanding of how to minimise social cost. Our Coasean framework allows us to further develop a comparative institutional analysis of the pandemic response.

Keywords: COVID-19, Coase theorem, externality

JEL Classification: D73, H23

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Allen, Darcy W E and Berg, Chris and Davidson, Sinclair and Potts, Jason, On Coase and COVID-19 (April 21, 2022). Allen, D.W.E, Berg, C., Davidson, S., Potts, J. (2022) 'On Coase and COVID-19', European Journal of Law and Economics. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3585509 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3585509