Expectations, reference points, and compliance with COVID-19 social distancing measures

Guglielmo Briscese, Nicola Lacetera, Mario Macis and Mirco Tonin

No 26916, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We surveyed representative samples of Italian residents at three critical points in the COVID-19 pandemic, to test whether and how intentions to comply with social-isolation restrictions respond to the duration of their possible extension. Individuals reported being more likely to reduce, and less likely to increase, their self-isolation effort if negatively surprised by a given hypothetical extension (i.e., if the extension is longer than what they expected), whereas positive surprises had no impact. These results are consistent with reference-dependent preferences, with individual expectations serving as a reference point, and loss aversion. Our findings indicate that public authorities should carefully manage expectations about policy measures and account for behavioral reactions to deviations from previous announcements.

JEL-codes: C42 D91 H12 H41 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-hea
Note: EH PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published as Briscese, Guglielmo & Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario & Tonin, Mirco, 2023. "Expectations, reference points, and compliance with COVID-19 social distancing measures," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26916.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Expectations, reference points, and compliance with COVID-19 social distancing measures (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26916

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26916

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().