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Portrait of Erik Wengström. Photo.

Erik Wengström

Director of Doctoral studies, Department of Economics, Professor

Portrait of Erik Wengström. Photo.

The Individual Welfare Costs of Stay-At-Home Policies

Author

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

Summary, in English

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.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2020-05-25

Language

English

Publication/Series

Working Papers

Issue

2020:9

Document type

Working paper

Topic

  • Economics

Keywords

  • Stay-at-home orders
  • welfare effects
  • choice experiment
  • D62
  • I18

Status

Published