Abstract
In this paper, we perform a choice experiment assessing the impact of stay-at-home policies on individual welfare. We estimate the willingness to accept compensation (WTA) for restricting non-working hours in Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The WTA for a one-month stay-at-home policy is about US$480 per person, or 9.1 percent of Sweden's monthly per capita GDP. Stricter lockdowns require disproportionately higher compensation than more lenient ones, indicating that strict policies are cost-effective only if they are much more successful in slowing the spread of the disease. Moreover, older people have a higher WTA of staying home than the rest of the population.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 340-362 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Scandinavian Journal of Economics |
| Volume | 124 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 Apr |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. P. Campos‐Mercade acknowledges funding from the Danish National Research Foundation grant DNRF134 (CEBI). F. Schneider acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation grant 100018_185176. We thank three anonymous referees for helpful comments. We are grateful for financial support from and . Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Handelsbankens forskningsstiftelse
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Föreningen för utgivande av the SJE.
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Economics
Free keywords
- Choice experiment
- individual welfare effects
- mental distress
- stay-at-home orders