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...

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Main Authors:	Decerf, Benoit, Ferreira, Francisco H. G., Mahler, Daniel G., Sterck, Olivier
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY PANDEMIC IMPACT LIVELIHOODS
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

id	okr-10986-33938
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spelling	okr-10986-339382022-09-20T00:13:01Z 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 CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY PANDEMIC IMPACT LIVELIHOODS 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. 2020-06-18T14:58:08Z 2020-06-18T14:58:08Z 2020-06 Working Paper 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 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9277 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY PANDEMIC IMPACT LIVELIHOODS
spellingShingle	CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 WELFARE POVERTY MORTALITY PANDEMIC IMPACT LIVELIHOODS 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
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9277
description	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.
format	Working Paper
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	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	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
_version_	1764479839336660992

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

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