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Portrait of Erik Wengström. Photo.

Erik Wengström

Professor, Director of Doctoral studies, Department of Economics

Portrait of Erik Wengström. Photo.

The impact of stay-at-home policies on individual welfare

Author

  • Ola Andersson
  • Pol Campos-Mercade
  • Fredrik Carlsson
  • Florian H. Schneider
  • Erik Wengström

Summary, in English

In this paper, we perform a choice experiment assessing the impact of stay-at-home policies on individual welfare. We estimate the willingness to accept compensation (WTA) for restricting non-working hours in Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The WTA for a one-month stay-at-home policy is about US$480 per person, or 9.1 percent of Sweden's monthly per capita GDP. Stricter lockdowns require disproportionately higher compensation than more lenient ones, indicating that strict policies are cost-effective only if they are much more successful in slowing the spread of the disease. Moreover, older people have a higher WTA of staying home than the rest of the population.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2022-04

Language

English

Pages

340-362

Publication/Series

Scandinavian Journal of Economics

Volume

124

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Economics

Keywords

  • Choice experiment
  • individual welfare effects
  • mental distress
  • stay-at-home orders

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0347-0520