Gary Becker
Eleven years ago, in March 2009, Nobel laureate Gary Becker wrote a blog post about the economic costs of a pandemic equal in severity to the Great Pandemic of 1918-19. He calculated that if the same percentage of the population were to die from such a pandemic in all countries, the total cost would be over $100 trillion, concluding that since the vast majority of people are willing to pay a lot to gain protection against such deadly flu viruses, it would be desirable to greatly increase the stockpile of drugs and vaccines even if the probability of another pandemic were low.
