Inframarginal externalities: COVID-19, vaccines, and universal mandates.

COVID-19 vaccine mandates are in place or being debated across the world. Standard neoclassical economics argues that the marginal social benefit from vaccination exceeds the marginal private benefit; everyone vaccinated against a given infectious disease protects others by not transmitting the disease. Consequently, private levels of vaccination will be lower than the socially optimal levels due to free-riding, which requires mandates to overcome the problem.

Battling COVID-19 with dysfunctional federalism: Lessons from India.

The Indian federation is highly centripetal, and historically, this has left states without the requisite legislative and fiscal authority to take independent action and initiate policies of significance. Consequently, India's response to the global COVID-19 pandemic was to impose a very severe countrywide lockdown using the mandate of the Union (federal) government. This centralized one-size-fits-all diktat was imposed despite high variations across states in resources, healthcare capacity, and incidence of COVID-19 cases.