Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

We evaluate the global welfare consequences of increases in mortality and poverty generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Increases in mortality are measured in terms of the number of years of life lost (LY) to the pandemic. Additional years spent in poverty (PY) are conservatively estimated using gr...

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Main Authors:	Decerf, Benoit, Ferreira, Francisco H.G., Mahler, Daniel G., Sterck, Olivier
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Elsevier 2021
Subjects:	COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35680

id	okr-10986-35680
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-356802021-07-19T16:31:49Z Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Decerf, Benoit Ferreira, Francisco H.G. Mahler, Daniel G. Sterck, Olivier COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY We evaluate the global welfare consequences of increases in mortality and poverty generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Increases in mortality are measured in terms of the number of years of life lost (LY) to the pandemic. Additional years spent in poverty (PY) are conservatively estimated using growth estimates for 2020 and two different scenarios for its distributional characteristics. Using years of life as a welfare metric yields a single parameter that captures the underlying trade-o between lives and livelihoods: how many PYs have the same welfare cost as one LY. Taking an agnostic view of this parameter, we compare estimates of LYs and PYs across countries for different scenarios. Three main findings arise. First, we estimate that, as of early June 2020, the pandemic (and the observed private and policy responses) had generated at least 68 million additional poverty years and 4.3 million years of life lost across 150 countries. The ratio of PYs to LYs is very large in most countries, suggesting that the poverty consequences of the crisis are of paramount importance. Second, this ratio declines systematically with GDP per capita: poverty accounts for a much greater share of the welfare costs in poorer countries. Finally, a comparison of these baseline results with mortality estimates in a counterfactual herd immunity scenario suggests that welfare losses would be greater in the latter in most countries. 2021-06-04T18:41:42Z 2021-06-04T18:41:42Z 2021-09 Journal Article World Development http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35680 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY
spellingShingle	COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY Decerf, Benoit Ferreira, Francisco H.G. Mahler, Daniel G. Sterck, Olivier Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
description	We evaluate the global welfare consequences of increases in mortality and poverty generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Increases in mortality are measured in terms of the number of years of life lost (LY) to the pandemic. Additional years spent in poverty (PY) are conservatively estimated using growth estimates for 2020 and two different scenarios for its distributional characteristics. Using years of life as a welfare metric yields a single parameter that captures the underlying trade-o between lives and livelihoods: how many PYs have the same welfare cost as one LY. Taking an agnostic view of this parameter, we compare estimates of LYs and PYs across countries for different scenarios. Three main findings arise. First, we estimate that, as of early June 2020, the pandemic (and the observed private and policy responses) had generated at least 68 million additional poverty years and 4.3 million years of life lost across 150 countries. The ratio of PYs to LYs is very large in most countries, suggesting that the poverty consequences of the crisis are of paramount importance. Second, this ratio declines systematically with GDP per capita: poverty accounts for a much greater share of the welfare costs in poorer countries. Finally, a comparison of these baseline results with mortality estimates in a counterfactual herd immunity scenario suggests that welfare losses would be greater in the latter in most countries.
format	Journal Article
author	Decerf, Benoit Ferreira, Francisco H.G. Mahler, Daniel G. Sterck, Olivier
author_facet	Decerf, Benoit Ferreira, Francisco H.G. Mahler, Daniel G. Sterck, Olivier
author_sort	Decerf, Benoit
title	Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short	Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full	Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr	Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed	Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort	lives and livelihoods : estimates of the global mortality and poverty effects of the covid-19 pandemic
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35680
_version_	1764483560678359040

Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

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