The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Public Choice View

Preface
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
	1.1 Public Interest Explanations vs. Public Choice Explanations
	References
Chapter 2: Viral Mitigation: Weak Theoretical Underpinnings
	2.1 SARS-CoV-2’s IFR Speaks Against the Equal Vulnerability Thesis
	2.2 There Is More to Immunity Than Antibodies: The Case of Pre-existing Immunity
	2.3 Is There Such a Thing as Asymptomatic Transmission?
	2.4 Wishful Thinking Part 1: Zero-Covid Through Lockdowns
	2.5 Wishful Thinking Part 2: Zero-Covid Through Mass Vaccination
	2.6 The Fundamental Problems of Lockdown Mechanism
	2.7 Lockdown Failure
	2.8 Pre-existing Immunity vs. Shutdowns
	2.9 Modeling Drawbacks: Poor Inputs, Poor Outputs
	2.10 Displacement Effect, Lockdowns, and Focused Protection
	References
Chapter 3: The World Stampeded: From Mass Hysteria to Prolonged Mass Hysteria
	3.1 Laying Out Mass Hysteria
	3.2 Mass Hysteria Intensified and Drew Out
	3.3 Mass Hysteria and Social Desirability Bias: Panic Institutionalized
	References
Chapter 4: Tradeoffs and Knock-On Effects
	4.1 The Wrong Dilemma
	4.2 Estimating Tradeoffs: Established Knowledge as Guiding Principle
	4.3 School Closures
	4.4 Economic Devastation Part 1: Deep Recession
	4.5 Economic Devastation Part 2: Increased Spending and Inflationary Tolls
	4.6 Isolation
	4.7 Unreasonably (?) High Excess Deaths
	References
Chapter 5: Public Choice Theory: An Explanation of the Pandemic Policy Responses
	5.1 Can Voters Ever Be Public-Interested Agents?
	5.2 Voters’ Ideal Point: A Conglomerate of Expected Utilities
	5.3 Politicians as Vote Maximizers
	5.4 Public Choice Theory Applied to Outliers
	5.5 Not Ill-Informed Politicians: Public Choice Theory and the Precautionary Principle
	5.6 Public Choice Theory and Mass Vaccination
	5.7 Bootleggers and Baptists
	5.8 Pandemic Responses’ Popularity: Weak and Hard Data
	5.9 Budget Maximizing Mechanism
	References
Chapter 6: Epilogue
	6.1 The Sound Scientific Grounds of Public Choice Theory
	Reference