COVID-19: Learning From Bitter Political Experience?

Ryan BourneWhy did some countries deal with COVID-19 better than others?Books, academic journal articles, and PhD dissertations will be written on that subject, with analysis having to contend with a vast array of country ‐​specific variables that could, conceivably, have affected public health outcomes. But public choice economics offers up one underexplored way to think about the quality of responses: as driven by political incentives.Despite claims by economists such as Mariana Mazzucato that governments are forward ‐​looking, there’s a good reason to suspect they will be ill ‐​prepared when it comes to low‐​probability, high‐​risk events such as pandemics.In part, this can be explained by electoral incentives.A classic paper by Neil Malhotra and Andrew Healy analyzed how voters responded to politicians handling natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes. They found that spending on disaster prevention was highly cost ‐​effective, often returning payoffs of 15‐​to‐​1. Yet when voters cast their ballots in presidential elections, candidates engaging in that type of spending saw no electoral benefit.Increases in relief spending in reaction to disasters, on the other hand, significantly increased the incumbents ’ vote share. Voters tend to reward those who react to crises by dishing out relief, in other words, but do not react to those who prevent the worst outcomes from crises by preparing. No wonder w...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs