Rather doomed than uncertain: risk attitudes and transmissive behavior under asymptomatic infection.
Published version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Matthies, Konstantin
Toxvaerd, Flavio https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1979-9695
Abstract
We analyze the relation between individuals' risk aversion and their willingness to expose themselves to infection when faced with an asymptomatic infectious disease. We show that in a high prevalence environment, increasing individuals' risk aversion increases their propensity to engage in transmissive behavior. The reason for this result is that as risk aversion increases, exposure which leads to infection with certainty becomes relatively more attractive than the uncertain payoffs from protected behavior. We provide evidence from a laboratory experiment which is consistent with our theoretical findings.
Description
Keywords
Asymptomatic infection, COVID-19, Economic epidemiology, Rational fatalism, Risk aversion
Journal Title
Econ Theory
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0938-2259
1432-0479
1432-0479
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC