The Political Economy of Epidemiology
Date
2017
Authors
Carson, Byron Bernell
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Abstract
These essays develop an institutional framework to epidemiology that highlights the conditions under which private actors resolve collective action problems associated with the prevention of infectious diseases. This framework is applied to a number of historical and modern cases from the United States and across the world to show that despite the theoretical problems of externalities and free riding, private coordination is more likely than previously thought. This is the case when people can capture the benefits of prevention and lower the cost of coordination. The main conclusion is that private and alternative disease prevention can be important means of mitigating the burden of infectious diseases, especially when people do not have access to functional governmental health institutions.
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Keywords
Economics, Epidemiology, Collective action, Disease prevention, Epidemiology, Incentives, Institutions, Profit