International Evidence on Vaccines and the Mortality to Infections Ratio in the Pre-Omicron Era

33 Pages Posted: 23 Nov 2021 Last revised: 14 Jan 2023

See all articles by Joshua Aizenman

Joshua Aizenman

University of Southern California - Department of Economics

Alex Cukierman

Tel Aviv University

Yothin Jinjarak

Victoria University of Wellington - Te Herenga Waka - School of Economics & Finance

Weining Xin

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: November 2021

Abstract

Prior to the appearance of the Omicron variant, observations on countries like the UK that have accumulated a large fraction of inoculated individuals suggest that, although initially, vaccines have little effect on new infections, they strongly reduce the share of mortality out of a given pool of infections. This paper examines the extent to which this phenomenon is more general by testing the hypothesis that the ratio of lagged mortality to current infections is decreasing in the total number of vaccines per one hundred individuals in the pre-Omicron period, in a pooled time-series, cross-section sample with weekly observations for up to 208 countries. The main finding is that vaccines moderate the share of mortality from a given pool of lagged infections at sufficiently high levels of vaccination rates, which is essentially a favorable shift in the tradeoff between life preservation and economic performance. The practical lesson is that, in the presence of a sufficiently high share of inoculated individuals, governments can shade down containment measures, even as infections are still rampant, without significant adverse effects on mortality.

Suggested Citation

Aizenman, Joshua and Cukierman, Alex and Jinjarak, Yothin and Xin, Weining, International Evidence on Vaccines and the Mortality to Infections Ratio in the Pre-Omicron Era (November 2021). NBER Working Paper No. w29498, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3968721

Joshua Aizenman (Contact Author)

University of Southern California - Department of Economics ( email )

3620 South Vermont Ave. Kaprielian (KAP) Hall 300
Los Angeles, CA 90089
United States

Alex Cukierman

Tel Aviv University ( email )

Ramat Aviv
Tel-Aviv, 6997801
Israel

Yothin Jinjarak

Victoria University of Wellington - Te Herenga Waka - School of Economics & Finance ( email )

P.O. Box 600
Wellington 6001
New Zealand

Weining Xin

International Monetary Fund (IMF) ( email )

700 19th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20431
United States

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