The effects of COVID-19 lockdown on fairness and cooperation: Evidence from a lablike experiment

Irene Maria Buso, Sofia De Caprariis, Daniela Di Cagno, Lorenzo Ferrari, Vittorio Larocca, Francesca Marazzi, Luca Panaccione and Lorenzo Spadoni

Economics Letters, 2020, vol. 196, issue C

Abstract: We run an experiment to study the effects of Covid-19 lockdown in Italy on preferences for fairness and cooperation. Given the impossibility of having participants in the lab during the lockdown, we adopted an online methodology based on a multi-platform architecture that brings experimental subjects in a “Lab on the Web”. Results from standard Ultimatum and linear Public Good games show that the circumstances in which participants lived the lockdown significantly affect their behavior in the two games. In particular, participants are more selfish in the ultimatum bargaining and contribute more to the public good when social isolation is stronger. However, cooperation decreases when lockdown is longer. We interpret these results as evidence of “social embeddedness” to compensate for “social distancing”.

Keywords: Covid-19; Economic experiment; Fairness; Voluntary contribution mechanism; Cooperation; Lablike data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 C92 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520303487
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:ecolet:v:196:y:2020:i:c:s0165176520303487

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109577

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().