Model Behaviour : How Economists Can Shape the Post-lockdown World

The seminal work on epidemiological models was carried out in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The models have developed substantially since, but their key drivers are those discovered nearly a century ago. Epidemiological models have real scientific value. However, any forecast made with them must rely on assumptions about human behaviour. A crucial one is the extent, to which people who are susceptible to infectious diseases mix socially with people who are already infected. The greater the mixing, the more people will catch the disease. Epidemiology is not about understanding how behaviour might be changed, such that it is different in the future to the past. Economists have expertise in analysing how people change behaviour when either incentives or the set of information they possess changes. Economists have been conspicuously absent from the policy debate over the easing and ultimate ending of lockdown. Yet whether a second wave of COVID-19 occurs depends crucially on assumptions that are made about how people will behave. Economists should become much more active in this area