Applying Epidemiological Principles to Economic Issues

Epidemiology is an interdisciplinary science with significant contributions to other academic disciplines. Theoretical tools from epidemiology have been used for the study of the rate and extent of propagation of computer virus infections and of the processes that determine how social networks form and operate, especially with respect to the spread of behaviors that affect public health. The recent global economic developments have revealed the existence of clear rhetorical analogies between medicine and economic science. The metaphor of the economic crisis as a “financial disease” that “spreads” throughout the financial markets has been used to describe the complex phenomenon of chain reactions between economic interconnected entities. Traditional empirical and theoretical frameworks have failed to incorporate the effects of these types of “social contagion” in their predictive models and the need for new approaches is now obvious. Epidemiological tools and methods have already been incorporated in economic-related fields of study such as Epidemiology Economics and Pharma-Economics and, more recently, in the assessment and prediction of public health crises. Scope of this paper is to explore whether the abovementioned analogies between medical and economic terms are merely rhetorical or if they could be used as the basis for a new conceptual framework that links these metaphors to economic science concepts. The epidemiological tools of case-control and cohort studies are used to identify early “signs and symptoms”, and guide the adoption of appropriate measures and control of possible economic contagion. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014