IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxford/v38y2022i4p719-741..html

Vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic: lessons from failure and success

Author

Listed:
  • Scott Duke Kominers
  • Alex Tabarrok

Abstract

The losses from the global Covid-19 pandemic have been staggering—trillions in economic costs, on top of significant losses of life, health, and well-being. The world made significant and successful investments in vaccines to mitigate the pandemic, yet there were missed opportunities, as well. We review what has been learnt about the value of vaccines, the speed at which vaccines can be developed, and the optimal and ethical approaches to vaccine distribution, as well as other issues related to pandemic and emergency preparedness. Surprisingly, spending on vaccines remains far below that which would be justified by the social return. We remain poorly prepared for future pandemics and other emergencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott Duke Kominers & Alex Tabarrok, 2022. "Vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic: lessons from failure and success," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 719-741.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:38:y:2022:i:4:p:719-741.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/grac036
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Healy, Andrew & Malhotra, Neil, 2009. "Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(3), pages 387-406, August.
    2. Matthew Cleevely & Daniel Susskind & David Vines & Louis Vines & Samuel Wills, 2020. "A workable strategy for COVID-19 testing: stratified periodic testing rather than universal random testing," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 14-37.
    3. Parag Pathak & Govind Persad & Tayfun Sönmez & M Utku Ünver, 2022. "Reserve system design for allocation of scarce medical resources in a pandemic: some perspectives from the field," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 924-940.
    4. Amrita Ahuja & Susan Athey & Arthur Baker & Eric Budish & Juan Camilo Castillo & Rachel Glennerster & Scott Duke Kominers & Michael Kremer & Jean Lee & Canice Prendergast & Christopher M. Snyder & Ale, 2021. "Preparing for a Pandemic: Accelerating Vaccine Availability," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 111, pages 331-335, May.
    5. Richard Holden & Andrew Leigh, 2022. "The race that stopped a nation: lessons from Australia’s Covid vaccine failures," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 818-832.
    6. William D. Nordhaus, 2004. "Schumpeterian Profits in the American Economy: Theory and Measurement," NBER Working Papers 10433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Markus B Bjoerkheim & Alex Tabarrok, 2022. "Covid in the nursing homes: the US experience," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 887-911.
    8. Ruchir Agarwal & Tristan Reed, 2022. "Financing vaccine equity: funding for day-zero of the next pandemic," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 833-850.
    9. Eric Budish, 2020. "Maximize Utility subject to R≤1: A Simple Price-Theory Approach to Covid-19 Lockdown and Reopening Policy," NBER Working Papers 28093, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Bradley Larsen & Marc J. Hetherington & Steven H. Greene & Timothy J. Ryan & Rahsaan D. Maxwell & Steven Tadelis, 2022. "Counter-stereotypical Messaging and Partisan Cues: Moving the Needle on Vaccines in a Polarized U.S," NBER Working Papers 29896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Susan Athey & Juan Camilo Castillo & Esha Chaudhuri & Michael Kremer & Alexandre Simoes Gomes & Christopher M Snyder, 2022. "Expanding capacity for vaccines against Covid-19 and future pandemics: a review of economic issues," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 742-770.
    12. Warwick McKibbin & David Vines, 2020. "Global macroeconomic cooperation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: a roadmap for the G20 and the IMF," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 297-337.
    13. Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez & M. Utku Ünver & M. Bumin Yenmez, 2024. "Fair Allocation of Vaccines, Ventilators and Antiviral Treatments: Leaving No Ethical Value Behind in Healthcare Rationing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(6), pages 3999-4036, June.
    14. Chad P Bown, 2022. "Covid-19 vaccine supply chains and the Defense Production Act," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 771-796.
    15. R Maria del Rio-Chanona & Penny Mealy & Anton Pichler & François Lafond & J Doyne Farmer, 2020. "Supply and demand shocks in the COVID-19 pandemic: an industry and occupation perspective," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 94-137.
    16. Robert Tucker Omberg & Alex Tabarrok, 2022. "Is it possible to prepare for a pandemic?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 851-875.
    17. Heidi Ledford, 2021. "Do vaccines protect against long COVID? What the data say," Nature, Nature, vol. 599(7886), pages 546-548, November.
    18. Mariana Mazzucato & Rainer Kattel, 2020. "COVID-19 and public-sector capacity," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 256-269.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Öhman, Mattias, 2023. "Cognitive ability, health policy, and the dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Emily Cameron-Blake & Helen Tatlow & Bernardo Andretti & Thomas Boby & Kaitlyn Green & Thomas Hale & Anna Petherick & Toby Phillips & Annalena Pott & Adam Wade & Hao Zha, 2023. "A panel dataset of COVID-19 vaccination policies in 185 countries," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 1402-1413, August.
    3. Mingming Chen & Qiangsong Wu & Zilong Wang & Qi Qi & Yi Hu & Tenglong Li, 2026. "The adaptive large language models for vaccine prediction: A novel approach to vaccine demand prediction with engineered deviation prompts," PLOS Digital Health, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(3), pages 1-14, March.
    4. Donovan Guttieres & Carla Van Riet & Nico Vandaele & Catherine Decouttere, 2025. "Expanding modeling boundaries to design more resilient vaccine supply networks," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 583-590, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carril, Rodrigo, 2026. "Effizienz in der Verteidigungsbeschaffung: Best Practices für Europas Sicherheit," Kiel Reports 6, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
    2. Alex Tabarrok, 2025. "Pandemic preparation without romance: insights from public choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 204(3), pages 261-285, September.
    3. McKibbin, Warwick & Fernando, Roshen, 2023. "The global economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    4. Cameron Hepburn & Brian O’Callaghan & Nicholas Stern & Joseph Stiglitz & Dimitri Zenghelis, 2020. "Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 359-381.
    5. Guangyue Wei, 2024. "The Features and Trends of the Economic Literature Related to COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(4), pages 15904-15930, December.
    6. Nikhil Agarwal & Andrew Komo & Chetan A. Patel & Parag A. Pathak & M. Utku Ünver, 2021. "The Trade-off Between Prioritization and Vaccination Speed Depends on Mitigation Measures," NBER Working Papers 28519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Witold Więcek, 2022. "Clinical trials for accelerating pandemic vaccines," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 797-817.
    8. Susan Athey & Juan Camilo Castillo & Esha Chaudhuri & Michael Kremer & Alexandre Simoes Gomes & Christopher M Snyder, 2022. "Expanding capacity for vaccines against Covid-19 and future pandemics: a review of economic issues," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 742-770.
    9. Snyder, Christopher M. & Hoyt, Kendall & Gouglas, Dimitrios, 2023. "An optimal mechanism to fund the development of vaccines against emerging epidemics," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Shami, Labib & Lazebnik, Teddy, 2023. "Financing and managing epidemiological-economic crises: Are we ready for another outbreak?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 74-89.
    11. Lazebnik, Teddy, 2025. "Evaluating supply chain resilience during pandemic using agent-based simulation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 674(C).
    12. Fang, Da & Guo, Yan, 2022. "Flow of goods to the shock of COVID-19 and toll-free highway policy: Evidence from logistics data in China," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    13. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    14. Mihai Ioan Mutascu & Scott W. Hegerty, 2024. "Expected inflation and interest-rate dynamics in the COVID era: evidence from the time–frequency domain," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 559-582, May.
    15. Gottlieb Charles & Grobovšek Jan & Poschke Markus & Saltiel Fernando, 2022. "Lockdown Accounting," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 197-210, January.
    16. Jeroen Klomp, 2020. "Election or Disaster Support?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(1), pages 205-220, January.
    17. Henrik Serup Christensen & Lauri Rapeli, 2021. "Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(1), pages 63-94, March.
    18. Giuliano Masiero & Michael Santarossa, 2020. "Earthquakes, grants, and public expenditure: How municipalities respond to natural disasters," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 481-516, June.
    19. André Schultz & Alexander Libman, 2015. "Is there a local knowledge advantage in federations? Evidence from a natural experiment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 25-42, January.
    20. Severin Reissl & Alessandro Caiani & Francesco Lamperti & Mattia Guerini & Fabio Vanni & Giorgio Fagiolo & Tommaso Ferraresi & Leonardo Ghezzi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini, 2022. "Assessing the Economic Impact of Lockdowns in Italy: A Computational Input–Output Approach [Nonlinear Production Networks with an Application to the Covid-19 Crisis]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(2), pages 358-409.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:38:y:2022:i:4:p:719-741.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oxrep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.