How Can Economics Enable Us Better to Understand COVID-19?

12 Pages Posted: 12 May 2020

See all articles by Richard E. Wagner

Richard E. Wagner

George Mason University - Department of Economics; George Mason University - Mercatus Center

Date Written: May 11, 2020

Abstract

Judging from most news reports, COVID-19 mostly engages contending claims and perceptions regarding public health and epidemiology. This essay does not denigrate the significance of those claims but seeks instead to explain why economics is of far greater significance than standard intuitions seem to allow. Health is one among many values after which people strive; economics is adept at exploring tradeoffs, in contrast to any presumption that public health trumps other values. Even more, economics offers a framework for exploring how the institutional arrangements within which we conduct our lives influences the qualities of those lives, which is a proposition that goes back to the theorists of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Keywords: COVID-19; social complexity; category mistake; undecidability; political economy

JEL Classification: D23, D73, I18, P16

Suggested Citation

Wagner, Richard E., How Can Economics Enable Us Better to Understand COVID-19? (May 11, 2020). GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 20-14, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3598627 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3598627

Richard E. Wagner (Contact Author)

George Mason University - Department of Economics ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner/

George Mason University - Mercatus Center ( email )

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Arlington, VA 22201
United States

HOME PAGE: http://ppe.mercatus.org/scholars/richard-wagner

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