In 2020 and 2021, the world witnessed policies that caused enormous net damage to nearly every country. We demonstrate the usefulness of the new WELLBY currency in gauging the costs and benefits of COVID policies and review the contributions of Australian economists to the scholarly and public...

Tanzania has undertaken important health sector reforms in the new millennium, and the most recent Health Sector Strategic Plan (2021-26) lays out ambitious targets to achieve universal health coverage. Yet, women in Tanzania continue to face significant barriers in accessing healthcare and the...

What is the role of general practitioners (GPs) in supporting or hindering public health efforts? We investigate the influence of vaccine-skeptic GPs on their patients' decisions to get a COVID-19 vaccination. We identify vaccine-skeptic GPs from the signatories of an open letter in which 199...

What is the role of general practitioners (GPs) in supporting or hindering public health efforts? We investigate the influence of vaccine-skeptic GPs on their patients' decisions to get a COVID-19 vaccination. We identify vaccine-skeptic GPs from the signatories of an open letter in which 199...

The response of governments to the COVID-19 outbreak was foremost oriented to two objectives: saving lives and limiting economic losses. However, the effectiveness and success factors of interventions were unknown ex-ante. This study aims to shed light on the drivers of countries' performances...

Urban poor societies were a vulnerable group. Once they are sick, they fall deeper into poverty. National Health Insurance (NHI) is a way the government initiated to overcome this situation. We analyzed the factor related to NHI membership among urban poor societies. The study population...

Triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, Israel's Ministry of Health (MoH) held a virtual datathon based on deidentified governmental data. Organized by a multidisciplinary committee, Israel's research community was invited to offer insights to help solve COVID-19 policy challenges. The Datathon was...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the introduction of mandatory face mask usage triggered a heated debate. A major point of debate is whether community use of masks creates a false sense of security that would diminish physical distancing, counteracting any potential direct benefit from masking. We...

The 21st century has been a period of rising inequality in both income and health. In this study, we find that geographic inequality in mortality for midlife Americans increased by about 70 percent from 1992 to 2016. This was not simply because states such as New York or California benefited...

We review Greek public sector healthcare policies and health-related outcomes since 2010.We find that excess spending was successfully curtailed, elements of the institutional framework were modernized, and health outcomes have been relatively favorable. However, especially prior to Covid-19,...

A high level of public services in housing, transport, education and health care is essential for liveability in urban centres, as shown in this report, with the help of European data for large cities. Inhabitants of larger cities, where the housing market is heavily commercialised in terms of...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the introduction of mandatory face mask usage triggered a heated debate. A major point of controversy is whether community use of masks creates a false sense of security that would diminish physical distancing, counteracting any potential direct benefit from...

We examine the extent to which exposure to higher relative COVID-19 mortality (RM), influences health system trust (HST), and whether changes in HST influence the perceived ease of compliance with pandemic restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on evidence from two representative...

A major policy concern across public vaccination programs is non-compliance. Exploiting Danish population data and three national reforms in regression discontinuity designs, we document the effects of reminders for childhood vaccination coverage. Retrospective reminders are primarily effective...

This study investigates the different cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics associated with individuals' willingness to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and their actual vaccination status. Our empirical analysis is based on data obtained from three survey waves of about 2,000 individuals...

In settings where resistance and rampant misinformation against vaccines exist, the prospect of containing infectious diseases remains a challenge. Can delivery of information regarding the benefits of vaccination through personal home visits by local ambassadors increase vaccine uptake? We...

We combined a natural experiment (the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020) with the tools of laboratory experiments to study whether and how an unprecedented shock on social interactions (the introduction and abrogation of a nationwide lockdown) affected the evolution of individuals'...

Background: After the emergence of the frst vaccines against the COVID-19, public health authorities have promoted mass vaccination in order to achieve herd immunity and reduce the efects of the disease. Vaccination rates have difered between countries, depending on supply (availability of...

The COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine have highlighted the dependence of the European Union (EU) on individual trading partners. One of the tasks of the European Commission’s new Directorate-General, the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), established in 2021, will...

Two concurrent lawmaking processes are currently underway at the World Health Organization (WHO) that could lead to a new pandemic treaty and to amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) of 2005. However, two major questions must first be addressed. Firstly, how can global health...

We examine the extent to which exposure to higher relative COVID-19 mortality (RM), influences health system trust (HST), and whether changes in HST influence the perceived ease of compliance with pandemic restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on evidence from two representative...

Governments across the world have implemented restrictive policies to slow the spread of COVID-19. Recommended face mask use has been a controversially discussed policy, among others, due to potential adverse effects on physical distancing. Using a randomized field experiment (N=300), we show...

We discuss and review literature on the macroeconomic effects of epidemics and pandemics since the late 20th century. First, we cover the role of health in driving economic growth and well-being and discuss standard frameworks for assessing the economic burden of infectious diseases. Second, we...