Ars Technica Debates about the economic cost of lockdown and whether the lives saved are worth the price show no signs of abating. The arguments continue despiteĀ near-consensusĀ among high-profile economists that ending lockdowns in the United States right now would result in more economic damage than returning to business as usual.
As Ars hasĀ reported, economists at the University of Wyoming have used US federal agency guidelines on how much a human life is worth to establish that, under a range of realistic scenarios, the value of lives saved by lockdown will far exceed the economic hit. And economists at the Federal Reserve and MIT haveĀ questioned the assumptionĀ that the economic cost of lockdown would in fact be higher than the economic hit that would be caused by allowing the virus to run rampant. Their analysis found that cities that had more aggressive public health responses to the 1918 flu pandemic fared better economically.
But there’s another question being asked: won’t a recessionĀ alsoĀ cause loss of life? And how would this loss of life compare to the lives saved from COVID-19 by a lockdown?
The widespread intuition
President Donald Trump hasĀ claimedĀ that a recession or depression will lead to a greater loss of life than the coronavirus pandemic, which could kill as many as 2.2 million people in the US in a worst-case scenario,Ā according to a widely used epidemiological model. (The New York Times indicates theĀ White House has not provided evidence for its claim.)
In the UK,Ā The TimesĀ argued that an economic crisis resulting from an extended period of lockdown could claim more lives than the coronavirus. Its report was based on a paperĀ submittedĀ to the journal Nanotechnology Perceptions that has not yet been peer-reviewed. The research, conducted by engineerĀ Philip Thomas, rests on the finding that national GDP correlates with life expectancy. It then makes the rather hefty assumption that GDPĀ causesĀ that life expectancy (rather than vice versa, or other factors causing both to move in lockstep). Extrapolating further, the work makes an even heftier assumption: that a decrease in GDP can therefore be used to calculate the lost life-years of an economic crash.
This assumption isĀ faulty on its own merits, but it is also not borne out by real-world data. Economists have been trying to understand the effects of economic crashes on life expectancy for theĀ better partĀ of aĀ centuryĀ and have turned up some unexpected findings. Unsurprisingly, societies and economies are complex enough that the consequences of economic crashes are complicated, messy, and context-dependent. But on average, economic downturns seem to lead toĀ fewer deaths, not more.
The counterintuitive reality
With recessions come fewer people on the roads, which meansĀ fewer traffic accidents. And as we’re seeing now with worldwide lockdowns, less driving also means improvedĀ air quality. Since poor air quality is aĀ public health crisisĀ in its own right, the air cleanup caused by economic downturns could partly explain the reduction in deaths caused by respiratory and cardiovascular disease.
Less work also meansĀ fewer workplace injuriesĀ and moreĀ leisure time, which possibly leads to more exercise, more home cooking, and less money for booze andĀ cigarettes.
This cheerful news hides a dark underbelly. While many people experience reduced stress, less risk of accidents, and lower disease burden as a result of economic downturns, others are still hit hard. Mental healthĀ deteriorates.Ā Binge drinking booms. For some,Ā stress-related conditions increase, and in the US, healthcare may becomeĀ impossible to accessĀ for many. Suicide rates do seem toĀ increaseĀ as a result of recessionsāalthough both suicides and opioid-related deaths in the US haveĀ continued to increaseĀ even as the economy has recovered, andĀ other factors play a role.
It’s a complex picture. In some arenas, mortality rates decrease; in others, they rise. Based on historical patterns, the health benefits appear to outweigh the costs in terms of sheer numbers of deaths. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the abject misery of the people left behind can be forgotten. If the bright side of health in a recession is accompanied byĀ austerity policies and a widening of health inequalities, it isn’t much of a bright side at all.
Policy choices
The evidence also suggests that these consequences aren’t set in stone. In anĀ analysisĀ of mortality in 23 EU countries following the Great Recession, researchers found that increased levels of unemployment correlated with lower overall deaths but increased suicides. That increase was worse in countries with less of a social safety net, like Bulgaria, compared to countries with a strong one, like Germany. At the same time, the mortality benefits were also bigger in countries like Bulgaria, suggesting that there was less of a response overall in countries like Germany.
