Modeling Behavioral Response to Infectious Diseases Under Information Delay

Frederick Chen (), Haosen He () and Chu A.(Alex) Yu ()
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Frederick Chen: Wake Forest University, Economics Department, Postal: 1834 Wake Forest Road, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, https://www.frederickchen.org/home
Haosen He: University of California, Berkeley, https://haosenhe.github.io/
Chu A.(Alex) Yu: Wake Forest University, Economics Department, Postal: 1834 Wake Forest Road, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, https://sites.google.com/view/alexyu

No 119, Working Papers from Wake Forest University, Economics Department

Abstract: We formulate and numerically solve a game-theoretic model of rational agents' self-protective actions in an epidemic game with information delay. We then compare our model simulation results with data collected from real human players in an online experiment conducted by Chen et al (2013). We find that, compared with game-theoretic agents, human players receive poorer endgame outcomes due to a lack of synchronization in their self-protective actions. In addition, human players' decisions are dependent on their infection history, and they are less responsive to changes in disease prevalence compared to game-theoretic agents. Our results suggest that human players in the epidemic game differ substantially from fully rational, forward-looking, strategic agents in terms of both player outcomes and decision-making mechanisms.

Keywords: Game theory; Dynamic game; Economic epidemiology; Mathematical epidemiology; Epidemics; Information delay; Coninuous-state dynamic programming; Numerical simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 C73 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2024-10-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-hea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:wfuewp:0119

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