ECON307

This course studies individuals' behavior using epidemiological models and tools from microeconomics. The course begins with the SIR model to analyze determinants of the spread of contagious diseases. Concepts from health economics are introduced to examine the welfare effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. The main analysis of pharmaceutical intervention will focus on the economics of drugs and vaccines development and their effect on achieving herd immunity. The analysis of nonpharmaceutical interventions focuses on the effect of social distancing behavior (in the case of respiratory diseases) and public campaigns (in the case of HIV) on disease spread and economic outcomes. The course also considers the effect of economic policies on the spread of diseases and economic outcomes. Prerequisite(s): ECON 255 and 260.