The conventional wisdom guiding pandemic policy is that the complexity of externalities justifies a centralized government response and suppression of economic freedom. We argue that public choice offers a compelling argument that the opposite is the case: complex global public health crises justify polycentric responses and protection of economic freedom. We show this by considering three distinct themes in the public choice analysis of pandemics. The first theme is that government failures are ubiquitous during pandemics. The second is that polycentric governance institutions are more appropriate than monocentric ones to address pandemic externalities. The third is that while economic freedom may make controlling pandemics more challenging in the short run, in the longer run, economic freedom is what ultimately contributes to a more robust response to pandemics through technological innovation and wealth creation. Together, public choice provides what we call a liberal political economy of pandemics in which polycentricity and economic freedom are appropriate institutions to deal with complex, novel externalities.

指导流行病政策的传统观点是，外部性的复杂性证明了政府集中应对和压制经济自由的合理性。我们认为，公共选择提供了一个令人信服的论据，事实恰恰相反：复杂的全球公共卫生危机证明多中心应对措施和保护经济自由是合理的。我们通过考虑流行病公共选择分析中的三个不同主题来证明这一点。第一个主题是，政府失灵在大流行期间无处不在。其次，多中心治理机构比单中心治理机构更适合应对流行病的外部性。第三，虽然经济自由在短期内可能会使控制流行病变得更具挑战性，但从长远来看，经济自由最终有助于通过技术创新和创造财富更强有力地应对流行病。总之，公共选择提供了我们所说的流行病自由政治经济学，其中多中心和经济自由是应对复杂、新颖的外部性的适当制度。