♪ [music] ♪

- [Alex] Hi, everyone.

Today, I want to talk about applying

some of the principles
of economics,

namely externalities
and incentives,

to understand COVID
and vaccine policy.

Let's begin with a simple flu shot.

A flu shot is a great example of 
a good with a positive externality.

When I get a shot, 
I benefit myself,

but I also benefit other people

because I'm less likely 
to transmit the virus.

In fact, the economist 
Corey White has estimated

that every two flu vaccinations
saves someone else

from getting sick 
and having to miss a day of work.

And every 4,000 vaccinations 
saves a life.

That's an incredibly 
cost-effective way of saving a life.

The problem is that even though
the social benefits are very high,

people are unlikely to weigh
the social benefits

as high as the benefits 
to themselves.

So individuals are 
under-incentivized to get a flu shot.

Now, we deal with 
the external benefits

of vaccinations 
in a variety of ways.

In some cases, such as polio,
we require school children

to be vaccinated by law.

In other cases, we offer incentives.

We subsidize vaccines 
to keep the price low.

It's not just government policy,
by the way.

Some firms will offer 
their workers free flu shots.

That's an interesting case 
where the employer internalizes

some of the positive externalities 
from vaccination.

COVID is especially fascinating

because we can actually see
the externalities in market prices.

Whenever one 
of the vaccine companies

has even a little bit of good news,
say, from a clinical trial,

the entire stock market jumps up.

Airline stocks, for example --

they jump up with every bit 
of good vaccine news.

The airlines, in other words,
are capturing some of the benefits

produced by vaccine manufacturers.

And since the vaccine manufacturers
aren't capturing all of the gains

from producing vaccines,

the vaccine companies 
are under-incentivized.

Now this is a case 
where economics leads you

to a completely different conclusion
than the man in the street.

The man in the street is worried
that the vaccine manufacturers

will profit too much 
from a vaccine --

that they will price gouge.

The economist is worried 
that the vaccine manufacturers

aren't profiting enough.

By the way, innovations, in general,
are under-incentivized.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist 
William Nordhaus has estimated

that innovators -- they only receive 
about 2 to 2.5% of the value

of their innovations.

Now, we do have some institutions
to try to alleviate this problem.

We subsidize basic research 
in universities,

and we offer firms patents, 
for example.

But neither of these solutions 
is going to work well for COVID.

It's too late to subsidize 
the basic research.

And a patent is exactly 
the wrong idea.

A patent raises the price 
above the competitive price,

but we know the competitive price
is already too high.

For a good with a positive externality 
like a vaccination,

we want the price to be 
below the competitive price.

So a patent creates 
a severe misallocation of resources.

So what do we do?

If we can't increase the profits 
of the vaccine companies,

say, because of politics, 
we can cut their costs.

That's one reason why 
Nobel Prize winner Michael Kremer,

Susan Athey, Chris Snyder, 
and myself,

working with a team of economists

at accelerating 
health technologies --

why we have proposed 
paying vaccine manufacturers

part of their costs.

Now, unfortunately, 
most vaccines fail,

so, typically,
a vaccine manufacturer --

they won't take the risk

of getting a vaccine factory
up and running

until after a vaccine has been 
proven safe and effective.

But if we follow the typical route,

we might end up 
with an approved vaccine

and not enough capacity to get 
millions of shots in arms for months.

So what we want to do is pay firms
to build at risk capacity now.

It's expensive to build 
a factory for a vaccine

that may never be approved.

But it's even more expensive
not to have a vaccine available

the moment that one 
is proven safe and effective.

In the U.S. alone, every month 
without a vaccine is costing

thousands of lives 
and billions of dollars of GDP.

So speeding a safe 
and effective vaccine

is extremely valuable
and worth investing in.

Okay, so there you have it:

externalities, incentives,
innovation policy,

using market design to improve 
social outcomes --

these are key principles
of economics,

and they can help us 
to improve policy in a pandemic.

- [Narrator] If you're a teacher,
you should check out

our classroom activity 
that incorporates this video.

If you're a learner, make sure
this video sticks

by taking a few quick 
practice questions.

To learn more 
about externalities, click here.

♪ [music] ♪