Cross-Regional Heterogeneity in Health and Economic Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Japan

Author : Shotaro Beppu, Daisuke Fujii, Hiroyuki Kubota, Kohei Machi, Yuta Maeda, Taisuke Nakata, Haruki Shibuya

Abstract

Health and macroeconomic outcomes varied substantially across prefectures in Japan during the COVID-19 crisis. Using an estimated macro-epidemiological model as well as the idea of revealed preference, we compute the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) and the conditional trade-off curve between health and economic outcomes in each pre- fecture. We find that there is a large heterogeneity in the MRS as well as the location and shape of the conditional trade-off curve.