Informing the public about a pandemic

Francis de Véricourt,, Huseyin Gurkan, and Shouqiang Wang,
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Francis de Véricourt,: ESMT European School of Management and Technology
Huseyin Gurkan,: ESMT European School of Management and Technology
Shouqiang Wang,: Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas

No ESMT-20-03, ESMT Research Working Papers from ESMT European School of Management and Technology

Abstract: This paper explores how governments may efficiently inform the public about an epidemic to induce compliance with their confinement measures. Using an information design framework, we find the government has an incentive to either downplay or exaggerate the severity of the epidemic if it heavily prioritizes the economy over population health or vice versa. Importantly, we find that the level of economic inequality in the population has an effect on these distortions. The more unequal the disease's economic impact on the population is, the less the government exaggerates and the more it downplays the severity of the epidemic. When the government weighs the economy and population health sufficiently equally, however, the government should always be fully transparent about the severity of the epidemic.

Keywords: Public health; epidemic control; information design; strategic behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12-15, Revised 2021-02-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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http://static.esmt.org/publications/workingpapers/ESMT-20-03.pdf First version, 2020 (application/pdf)
http://static.esmt.org/publications/workingpapers/ESMT-20-03_R2.pdf Revised version, 2021 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-20-03_r2

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