Cargando…
Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19
How might COVID-19 affect human capital and wellbeing in the long run? The COVID-19 pandemic has already imposed a heavy human cost—taken together, this public health crisis and its attendant economic downturn appear poised to dwarf the scope, scale, and disruptiveness of most modern pandemics. What...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier Inc.
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7606070/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33162564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2020.101381 |
_version_ | 1783604434101600256 |
---|---|
author | Arthi, Vellore Parman, John |
author_facet | Arthi, Vellore Parman, John |
author_sort | Arthi, Vellore |
collection | PubMed |
description | How might COVID-19 affect human capital and wellbeing in the long run? The COVID-19 pandemic has already imposed a heavy human cost—taken together, this public health crisis and its attendant economic downturn appear poised to dwarf the scope, scale, and disruptiveness of most modern pandemics. What evidence we do have about other modern pandemics is largely limited to short-run impacts. Consequently, recent experience can do little to help us anticipate and respond to COVID-19’s potential long-run impact on individuals over decades and even generations. History, however, offers a solution. Historical crises offer closer analogues to COVID-19 in each of its key dimensions—as a global pandemic, as a global recession—and offer the runway necessary to study the life-course and intergenerational outcomes. In this paper, we review the evidence on the long-run effects on health, labor, and human capital of both historical pandemics (with a focus on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic) and historical recessions (with a focus on the Great Depression). We conclude by discussing how past crises can inform our approach to COVID-19—helping tell us what to look for, what to prepare for, and what data we ought to collect now. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7606070 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Elsevier Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76060702020-11-03 Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 Arthi, Vellore Parman, John Explor Econ Hist Surveys and Speculations How might COVID-19 affect human capital and wellbeing in the long run? The COVID-19 pandemic has already imposed a heavy human cost—taken together, this public health crisis and its attendant economic downturn appear poised to dwarf the scope, scale, and disruptiveness of most modern pandemics. What evidence we do have about other modern pandemics is largely limited to short-run impacts. Consequently, recent experience can do little to help us anticipate and respond to COVID-19’s potential long-run impact on individuals over decades and even generations. History, however, offers a solution. Historical crises offer closer analogues to COVID-19 in each of its key dimensions—as a global pandemic, as a global recession—and offer the runway necessary to study the life-course and intergenerational outcomes. In this paper, we review the evidence on the long-run effects on health, labor, and human capital of both historical pandemics (with a focus on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic) and historical recessions (with a focus on the Great Depression). We conclude by discussing how past crises can inform our approach to COVID-19—helping tell us what to look for, what to prepare for, and what data we ought to collect now. Elsevier Inc. 2021-01 2020-11-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7606070/ /pubmed/33162564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2020.101381 Text en © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Surveys and Speculations Arthi, Vellore Parman, John Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 |
title | Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 |
title_full | Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 |
title_fullStr | Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 |
title_full_unstemmed | Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 |
title_short | Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19 |
title_sort | disease, downturns, and wellbeing: economic history and the long-run impacts of covid-19 |
topic | Surveys and Speculations |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7606070/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33162564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2020.101381 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT arthivellore diseasedownturnsandwellbeingeconomichistoryandthelongrunimpactsofcovid19 AT parmanjohn diseasedownturnsandwellbeingeconomichistoryandthelongrunimpactsofcovid19 |