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The Individual Welfare Costs of Stay-At-Home Policies

Andersson, Ola ; Campos-Mercade, Pol ; Carlsson, Fredrik ; Schneider, Florian and Wengström, Erik LU (2020) In Working Papers
Abstract
This paper reports the results of a choice experiment designed to estimate the private welfare costs of stay-at-home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is conducted on a large and representative sample of the Swedish population. The results suggest that the welfare cost of a one-month stay-at-home policy, restricting non-working hours away from home, amounts to 9.1 percent of Sweden's monthly GDP. The cost can be interpreted as 29,600 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), which roughly corresponds to between 3,700 and 8,000 COVID-19 fatalities. Moreover, we find that stricter and longer lockdowns are disproportionately more costly than more lenient ones. This result indicates that strict stay-at-home policies are likely to be... (More)
This paper reports the results of a choice experiment designed to estimate the private welfare costs of stay-at-home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is conducted on a large and representative sample of the Swedish population. The results suggest that the welfare cost of a one-month stay-at-home policy, restricting non-working hours away from home, amounts to 9.1 percent of Sweden's monthly GDP. The cost can be interpreted as 29,600 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), which roughly corresponds to between 3,700 and 8,000 COVID-19 fatalities. Moreover, we find that stricter and longer lockdowns are disproportionately more costly than more lenient ones. This result indicates that strict stay-at-home policies are likely to be cost-effective only if they slow the spread of the disease much more than more lenient ones. (Less)
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author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Stay-at-home orders, welfare effects, choice experiment, D62, I18
in
Working Papers
issue
2020:9
pages
43 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
f46848e2-b0b6-4d9b-a3f6-74bde5fc9634
date added to LUP
2020-06-11 09:03:12
date last changed
2025-04-04 15:12:24
@misc{f46848e2-b0b6-4d9b-a3f6-74bde5fc9634,
  abstract     = {{This paper reports the results of a choice experiment designed to estimate the private welfare costs of stay-at-home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is conducted on a large and representative sample of the Swedish population. The results suggest that the welfare cost of a one-month stay-at-home policy, restricting non-working hours away from home, amounts to 9.1 percent of Sweden's monthly GDP. The cost can be interpreted as 29,600 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), which roughly corresponds to between 3,700 and 8,000 COVID-19 fatalities. Moreover, we find that stricter and longer lockdowns are disproportionately more costly than more lenient ones. This result indicates that strict stay-at-home policies are likely to be cost-effective only if they slow the spread of the disease much more than more lenient ones.}},
  author       = {{Andersson, Ola and Campos-Mercade, Pol and Carlsson, Fredrik and Schneider, Florian and Wengström, Erik}},
  keywords     = {{Stay-at-home orders; welfare effects; choice experiment; D62; I18}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{05}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2020:9}},
  series       = {{Working Papers}},
  title        = {{The Individual Welfare Costs of Stay-At-Home Policies}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/194581696/WP20_9.pdf}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}