Erik Wengström
Professor, Director of Doctoral studies, Department of Economics
The impact of stay-at-home policies on individual welfare
Author
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