Papers Published in World Economics:
The Economic Implications of Epidemics Old and New
The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the winter of
2002–03 raised the specter of a new, unknown and uncontrollable infectious
disease that spreads quickly and is often fatal. Certain branches of economic
activity, notably tourism, felt its impact almost at once, and investor expectations
of a safe and controlled investment climate were brought into question. Part of
the shock of SARS was the abrupt reversal of a mounting legacy of disease
control that had altered societies’ expectations from coping with waves of
epidemics of smallpox, cholera, and measles, among other diseases, to
complacency with the virtual elimination of disease epidemics. This paper
analyzes the economic implications of the Great Plague in the fourteenth century,
the 1918–19 influenza epidemic, the HIV/AIDS curse and SARS to demonstrate
the short- and long-term effects of different kinds of epidemics. The magnitude
and nature of economic effects vary according to the duration and characteristics
of the
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