This monograph evaluates public policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through a public choice lens. The book compares two prominent, albeit mutually exclusive, theories in social sciences―public interest theory and public choice theory―and explores how their predictions perform within the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapters present different pandemic policies alongside empirical data in order to draw conclusions about their efficacy, and, in turn, draw conclusions about the veracity of each theory. By the end of the volume, the reader will be able to draw their own conclusions about whether the pandemic policy responses served the public interest, as public interest theory suggests, or the personal interests of the politicians who implemented them, as public choice theory holds.
Author(s): Panagiotis Karadimas
Series: Studies in Public Choice, 42
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 141
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Public Interest Explanations vs. Public Choice Explanations
References
Chapter 2: Viral Mitigation: Weak Theoretical Underpinnings
2.1 SARS-CoV-2’s IFR Speaks Against the Equal Vulnerability Thesis
2.2 There Is More to Immunity Than Antibodies: The Case of Pre-existing Immunity
2.3 Is There Such a Thing as Asymptomatic Transmission?
2.4 Wishful Thinking Part 1: Zero-Covid Through Lockdowns
2.5 Wishful Thinking Part 2: Zero-Covid Through Mass Vaccination
2.6 The Fundamental Problems of Lockdown Mechanism
2.7 Lockdown Failure
2.8 Pre-existing Immunity vs. Shutdowns
2.9 Modeling Drawbacks: Poor Inputs, Poor Outputs
2.10 Displacement Effect, Lockdowns, and Focused Protection
References
Chapter 3: The World Stampeded: From Mass Hysteria to Prolonged Mass Hysteria
3.1 Laying Out Mass Hysteria
3.2 Mass Hysteria Intensified and Drew Out
3.3 Mass Hysteria and Social Desirability Bias: Panic Institutionalized
References
Chapter 4: Tradeoffs and Knock-On Effects
4.1 The Wrong Dilemma
4.2 Estimating Tradeoffs: Established Knowledge as Guiding Principle
4.3 School Closures
4.4 Economic Devastation Part 1: Deep Recession
4.5 Economic Devastation Part 2: Increased Spending and Inflationary Tolls
4.6 Isolation
4.7 Unreasonably (?) High Excess Deaths
References
Chapter 5: Public Choice Theory: An Explanation of the Pandemic Policy Responses
5.1 Can Voters Ever Be Public-Interested Agents?
5.2 Voters’ Ideal Point: A Conglomerate of Expected Utilities
5.3 Politicians as Vote Maximizers
5.4 Public Choice Theory Applied to Outliers
5.5 Not Ill-Informed Politicians: Public Choice Theory and the Precautionary Principle
5.6 Public Choice Theory and Mass Vaccination
5.7 Bootleggers and Baptists
5.8 Pandemic Responses’ Popularity: Weak and Hard Data
5.9 Budget Maximizing Mechanism
References
Chapter 6: Epilogue
6.1 The Sound Scientific Grounds of Public Choice Theory
Reference
