Lives and livelihoods: Estimates of the global mortality and poverty effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: 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-off 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 observ

SUBMITTER: Decerf B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9758391 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature