Analysis of the Cost Benefit Advice on COVID-19 Received by the New Zealand Government

This paper describes and analyses the recommendations of the government’s covid-19 advisers, with particular emphasis on their use or otherwise of cost-benefit analysis (CBA). In respect of Professors Baker and Wilson, their views markedly fluctuated: on whether mitigation or elimination was optimal, on whether they conducted a CBA before recommending a course of action, on whether ex-ante CBA was even useful, and on the appropriate value of a QALY. In respect of TPM, they did not support lockdowns until after the government elected to do so, and never conducted any CBA on lockdowns/elimination versus mitigation despite accepting the merits of such analysis and estimating or citing relevant data on deaths and GDP losses in a subsidiary exercise. Finally, in respect of the Skegg Committee, they concluded in favour of continued pursuit of elimination but presented no quantitative analysis in support of that, let alone a CBA.