Non-communicable Diseases and Their Macroeconomic Impact in India

Non-communicable diseases now account for two-thirds of the total mortality in India and are projected to account for an estimated 75% of the total mortality by 2030. Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases, and diabetes are the country's leading causes of death. Taken as a whole, NCDs have a sizeable economic effect at the household, local, and national levels. Using a macroeconomic model, this study estimates that in the years between 2015 and 2030, NCDs will result in macroeconomic costs that total $3,158 per capita, equivalent to a 7% annual tax on the country's gross domestic product. It also discusses the expected effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the NCD burden and its macroeconomic impact. © 2021 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.

Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic: comparing alternative value frameworks

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to make difficult ethical choices, e.g., how to balance public health and socioeconomic activity and whom to prioritize in allocating vaccines or other scarce medical resources. We discuss the implications of benefit-cost analysis, utilitarianism, and prioritarianism in evaluating COVID-19-related policies. The relative regressivity of COVID-19 burdens and control policy costs determines whether increased sensitivity to distribution supports more or less aggressive control policies. Utilitarianism and prioritarianism, in that order, increasingly favor income redistribution mechanisms compared with benefit-cost analysis. The concern for the worse-off implies that prioritarianism is more likely than utilitarianism or benefit-cost analysis to target young and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals in the allocation of scarce vaccine doses.

Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses

We discuss and review literature on the macroeconomic effects of epidemics and pan-demics since the late twentieth century. First, we cover the role of health in driv -ing economic growth and well-being and discuss standard frameworks for assessing the economic burden of infectious diseases. Second, we sketch a general theoretical framework to evaluate the trade-offs policy makers must consider when addressing infectious diseases and their macroeconomic repercussions. In so doing, we emphasize the dependence of economic consequences on (i) disease characteristics;(ii) inequal-ities among individuals in terms of susceptibility, preferences, and income;and (iii) cross-country heterogeneities in terms of their institutional and macroeconomic environments. Third, we study pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical policies aimed at mitigating and preventing infectious diseases and their macroeconomic repercus-sions. Fourth, we discuss the health toll and economic impacts of five infectious dis-eases: HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19. Although major epidemics and pandemics can take an enormous human toll and impose a staggering economic burden, early and targeted health and economic policy interventions can often mitigate both to a substantial degree. (JEL E20, H50, I12, I14, I15, I18, J17)

Going beyond GDP with a parsimonious indicator: Inequality-adjusted healthy lifetime income

Per capita GDP has limited use as a well-being indicator because it does not capture many dimensions that imply a “good life”, such as health and equality of opportunity. However, per capita GDP has the virtues of being easy to interpret and to calculate with manageable data requirements. Against this backdrop, there is a need for a measure of well-being that preserves the advantages of per capita GDP, but also includes health and equality. We propose a new parsimonious indicator to fill this gap, and calculate it for 149 countries. This new indicator could be particularly useful in complementing standard well-being indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because (i) COVID-19 predominantly affects older adults beyond their prime working ages whose mortality and morbidity do not strongly affect GDP, and (ii) COVID-19 is known to have large effects on inequality in many countries. © 2021

An ounce of prevention. Our approach to vaccine finance is ill-suited to addressing epidemic risk

Despite the high societal value of vaccination against diseases of epidemic potential, aspects of vaccine economics create challenges for achieving socially optimal levels of vaccine R&D, production, and uptake. Because vaccine R&D and the knowledge it creates are global public goods and because administered doses of vaccine have substantial positive externalities, the market tends to undersupply them. We therefore need public intervention to support R&D, manufacture, financing, and delivery-likely in the form of collective financing and the regulation of existing institutions. COVID-19 is highlighting the fragility of our current systems for vaccine development, manufacture, and delivery. The world would do well to strengthen its systems before the next emerging pathogen gets a foothold in the human reservoir.