Main description:

This book offers a lively account of the humanitarian, economic, societal, and planetwide impacts of the pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic included, which are traced back to as early as the 14th century plague pandemic. Placing the pandemics along with other globally shared resources, such as global warming, AI singularity, and high-risk physics experiments, each of the nine chapters of the book discusses the global health crises from a variety of unique standpoints, including infectious diseases, economics, governance, and public health. Based on the historical records of past pandemics and the rich data from the COVID-19 pandemic, a conceptual framework is presented for the economics of pandemics as a globally shared experience.

This book aims to critically examine salient features in the global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including global governance, lockdowns, radical movements, and mRNA vaccines. The book will be a valuable resource to students, researchers, and policymakers who are working in the fields of environmental economics, global-scale public goods, and health economics.

Contents:

Chapter 1. The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Globally-shared Experience: An IntroductionChapter 2. Pandemic Economics: Essential Features and Outstanding QuestionsChapter 3. Pandemic Analysis I: Global Governance for a Global Pandemic?Chapter 4. Pandemic Analysis II: Governmental Actions During the Pandemic: Lockdown or No Lockdown?Chapter 5. Pandemic Analysis III: The Great Reset, People's Uprisings, and Other Radical Change ProposalsChapter 6. Pandemic Analysis IV: Is the COVID-19 Pandemic a Doomsday Scenario for Climate Change?Chapter 7. Pandemic Analysis V: The Science and Economics of a Vaccine for Ending the PandemicChapter 8. The Economics of Pandemics as a Globally-shared Experience: A TheoryChapter 9. Some Yet Unresolved Questions and Mysteries about the COVID-19 Pandemic