Lives and Livelihoods : Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
This paper evaluates 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 s...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/655511592232527722/Lives-and-Livelihoods-Estimates-of-the-Global-Mortality-and-Poverty-Effects-of-the-Covid-19-Pandemic http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33938 |
| Summary: | This paper evaluates 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-off between lives and livelihoods: how many PYs have
the same welfare cost as one LY. Taking an agnostic view of
this parameter, estimates of LYs and PYs are compared across
countries for different scenarios. Three main findings
arise. First, as of early June 2020, the pandemic (and the
observed private and policy responses) has 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, the
dominance of poverty over mortality is reversed in a
counterfactual "herd immunity" scenario: without
any policy intervention, LYs tend to be greater than PYs,
and the overall welfare losses are greater. |
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