 Contagion management through information disclosureJonas Hedlund, Allan Hernandez-Chanto and Carlos Oyarzun Journal of Economic Theory, 2024, vol. 218, issue C Abstract: We analyze information disclosure as a policy instrument for contagion management in decentralized environments. A benevolent planner (e.g., the government) tests a fraction of the population to learn the infection rate. Individuals meet randomly and exert vigilance effort. Efforts factor in a passage function to reduce the probability of contagion. We analyze the information disclosure policy that maximizes society's expected welfare. When efforts are substitutes, we provide necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for full disclosure to be optimal. When efforts are complements, equilibrium effort jumps from no-effort to full-effort as a function of contagion exposure risk. Consequently, a disclosure policy pooling intermediate infection rates—which are associated to high exposure risks—is optimal. Keywords: Contagion; Information design; Full-disclosure; Obfuscation; Strategic substitutes; Strategic complements (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:218:y:2024:i:c:s0022053124000437 DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2024.105837 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Theory is currently edited by A. Lizzeri and K. Shell More articles in Journal of Economic Theory from Elsevier |
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