Addressing the Covid-19 Pandemic: Comparing Alternative Value Frameworks

80 Pages Posted: 15 Mar 2021 Last revised: 6 May 2025

See all articles by Maddalena Ferranna

Maddalena Ferranna

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health

JP Sevilla

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health

David E. Bloom

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to make difficult ethical choices, e.g., how to balance public health and socioeconomic activity and whom to prioritize in allocating vaccines or other scarce medical resources. We discuss the implications of benefit-cost analysis, utilitarianism, and prioritarianism in evaluating COVID-19-related policies. The relative regressivity of COVID-19 burdens and control policy costs determines whether increased sensitivity to distribution supports more or less aggressive control policies. Utilitarianism and prioritarianism, in that order, increasingly favor income redistribution mechanisms compared with benefit-cost analysis. The concern for the worse-off implies that prioritarianism is more likely than utilitarianism or benefit-cost analysis to target young and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals in the allocation of scarce vaccine doses.

Keywords: prioritarianism, benefit-cost analysis, utilitarianism, COVID-19, vaccine allocation, lockdown, control policies

JEL Classification: I1, I3, D6

Suggested Citation

Ferranna, Maddalena and Sevilla, JP and Bloom, David E., Addressing the Covid-19 Pandemic: Comparing Alternative Value Frameworks. IZA Discussion Paper No. 14181, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3803725

Maddalena Ferranna (Contact Author)

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health ( email )

677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA MA 02115
United States

JP Sevilla

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health

677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA MA 02115
United States

David E. Bloom

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health ( email )

677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA MA 02115
United States
617-432-0654 (Phone)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
70
Abstract Views
609
Rank
573,227
PlumX Metrics