Effectivity of vaccination lottery in Slovakia

During 2021, the Slovak Republic was lagging behind other states in the frequency of COVID-19 vaccinations. One supposed solution financed by the government was the vaccination lottery. It was possible to participate in each vaccine taken. This bachelor's thesis aims to evaluate whether the vaccination lottery in Slovakia was an effective tool for motivating an increase in vaccination rates. This is done using the Chow test of a break in series and Cost-Benefit analysis. The first chapter describes the progress of the vaccination lottery. The second chapter discusses the opinions of the Slovak population on vaccination, the lottery, and their motivations. The third chapter summarizes insights from published literature explaining vaccination as a positive externality and subsequently, incentive policies for vaccination. In the fourth chapter, the Chow test demonstrated the existence of structural breaks for both the first and second doses of the vaccine. However, the increase in the number of administered vaccine doses was short-term, leading to the need to quantify the monetary value of vaccinated individuals. The fifth chapter examined whether the benefits, defined as the costs saved on sick leave, hospitalization, and loss of life years per unvaccinated individual, outweighed the invested costs of the financial lottery premium. The analysis showed that the project was economically effective, with a positive net benefit, and that the benefits were ten times higher than the costs. The number of people that needed to be vaccinated to ensure efficiency was double the original estimate of the Value for Money Unit. This may be due to differentiating between the benefits of those vaccinated with one and two doses, and between age groups in this bachelor thesis.