Natural versus artificial herd immunity: Is vaccine research investment always optimal?

IF 1.2 Q3 ECONOMICS

Research in Economics Pub Date : 2024-06-06 DOI:10.1016/j.rie.2024.100982

Stefano Bosi , Carmen Camacho , David Desmarchelier

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Under the threat of a rapid expanding virus like the 2020 COVID-19, policy-makers need to decide relatively fast whether and under which conditions to invest in a vaccine, and eventually adopt other protective measures like social distancing or lockdowns, or to wait for natural herd immunity. Taking into account that vaccines take time to be fully developed and effective, this paper considers a unified framework at the crossroad between economics and epidemiology to study optimal public spending in medical research to obtain a vaccine against an infectious disease evolving according to a SIR dynamics. We prove that developed economies always invest in the search of a vaccine. The more individuals care about consumption, the more they actually reduce their current consumption and the more they invest in the vaccine research program to recover their consumption potential at the earliest. Our model would only recommend economies with very poor technology to restrain from investment and wait for herd immunity.

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自然与人工群体免疫：疫苗研究投资总是最优的吗？

在 2020 年 COVID-19 等快速扩张病毒的威胁下，政策制定者需要相对快速地决定是否以及在何种条件下投资疫苗，并最终采取其他保护措施，如社会隔离或封锁，或等待自然群体免疫。考虑到疫苗的全面开发和发挥效力需要时间，本文在经济学和流行病学的交叉点上考虑了一个统一的框架，以研究在医学研究方面的最佳公共开支，从而获得根据 SIR 动力学演变的传染病疫苗。我们证明，发达经济体总是投资于寻找疫苗。个人越关心消费，他们实际上就越会减少目前的消费，并越会投资于疫苗研究项目，以尽早恢复其消费潜力。我们的模型只建议技术非常落后的经济体限制投资，等待群体免疫。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Research in Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

1.40

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

89 days

期刊介绍： Established in 1947, Research in Economics is one of the oldest general-interest economics journals in the world and the main one among those based in Italy. The purpose of the journal is to select original theoretical and empirical articles that will have high impact on the debate in the social sciences; since 1947, it has published important research contributions on a wide range of topics. A summary of our editorial policy is this: the editors make a preliminary assessment of whether the results of a paper, if correct, are worth publishing. If so one of the associate editors reviews the paper: from the reviewer we expect to learn if the paper is understandable and coherent and - within reasonable bounds - the results are correct. We believe that long lags in publication and multiple demands for revision simply slow scientific progress. Our goal is to provide you a definitive answer within one month of submission. We give the editors one week to judge the overall contribution and if acceptable send your paper to an associate editor. We expect the associate editor to provide a more detailed evaluation within three weeks so that the editors can make a final decision before the month expires. In the (rare) case of a revision we allow four months and in the case of conditional acceptance we allow two months to submit the final version. In both cases we expect a cover letter explaining how you met the requirements. For conditional acceptance the editors will verify that the requirements were met. In the case of revision the original associate editor will do so. If the revision cannot be at least conditionally accepted it is rejected: there is no second revision.