The EU’s vaccine procurement strategy from a game theory perspective

Absztrakt (kivonat)

This paper examines the puzzle of the joint vaccine procurement of the EU member states in 2020, reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic. After a theoretical introduction and short timeline leading up to the negotiations, the case study finds, that the assumed prisoner’s dilemma payoffs do not fit the real world, which can also be observed if we see, that the outcome was cooperation-cooperation, not defection-defection, which is the characteristic of the stag hunt, not the prisoner’s dilemma. This is due to the political and economic interdependence existing between the member states, the principle of free movement and the international scale of the pandemic.