{"title":"The Blossoming of Economic Epidemiology","authors":"David McAdams","doi":"10.1146/ANNUREV-ECONOMICS-082120-122900","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Infectious diseases, ideas, new products, and other infectants spread in epidemic fashion through social contact. The COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of fake news, and the rise of antimicrobial resistance have thrust economic epidemiology into the forefront of public policy debate and reinvigorated the field. Focusing for concreteness on disease-causing pathogens, this review provides a taxonomy of economic-epidemic models, emphasizing both the biology/immunology of the disease and the economics of the social context. An economic epidemic is one whose diffusion through the agent population is generated by agents’ endogenous behavior. I highlight properties of the equilibrium epidemic trajectory and discuss ways in which public health authorities can change the game for the better by ( a) imposing restrictions on agent activity to reduce the harm done during a viral outbreak and ( b) enabling diagnostic-informed interventions to slow or even reverse the rise of antibiotic resistance.","PeriodicalId":47891,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"10","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annual Review of Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-ECONOMICS-082120-122900","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 10
Abstract
Infectious diseases, ideas, new products, and other infectants spread in epidemic fashion through social contact. The COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of fake news, and the rise of antimicrobial resistance have thrust economic epidemiology into the forefront of public policy debate and reinvigorated the field. Focusing for concreteness on disease-causing pathogens, this review provides a taxonomy of economic-epidemic models, emphasizing both the biology/immunology of the disease and the economics of the social context. An economic epidemic is one whose diffusion through the agent population is generated by agents’ endogenous behavior. I highlight properties of the equilibrium epidemic trajectory and discuss ways in which public health authorities can change the game for the better by ( a) imposing restrictions on agent activity to reduce the harm done during a viral outbreak and ( b) enabling diagnostic-informed interventions to slow or even reverse the rise of antibiotic resistance.
期刊介绍:
The Annual Review of Economics covers significant developments in the field of economics, including macroeconomics and money; microeconomics, including economic psychology; international economics; public finance; health economics; education; economic growth and technological change; economic development; social economics, including culture, institutions, social interaction, and networks; game theory, political economy, and social choice; and more.