Economic epidemiological modelling: A progress report

Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, the integration of epidemiology and economics that is, economic epidemiology modelling (epi-econ), was relatively limited. The emergence of the Covid-19 crisis has prompted an unprecedented surge in this literature. This paper identifies and develops the main conceptual and modelling challenges involved in the expanding epi-econ stream, with a particular attention to the mathematical issues due, in particular, to the non-convex nature of epi-econ models. Recent extensions are also examined and a few future areas of research highlighted.