Anti-social behaviour and economic decision-making: Panel experimental evidence in the wake of COVID-19

Paul M. Lohmann, Elisabeth Gsottbauer, Jing You and Andreas Kontoleon

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023, vol. 206, issue C, 136-171

Abstract: We systematically examine the acute impact of exposure to a public health crisis on anti-social behaviour and economic decision-making using unique experimental panel data from China, collected just before the outbreak of COVID-19 and immediately after the first wave was overcome. Exploiting plausibly exogenous geographical variation in virus exposure coupled with a dataset of longitudinal experiments, we show that participants who were more intensely exposed to the virus outbreak became more anti-social than those with lower exposure, while other aspects of economic and social preferences remain largely stable. The finding is robust to multiple hypothesis testing and a similar, yet less pronounced pattern emerges when using alternative measures of virus exposure, reflecting societal concern and sentiment, constructed using social media data. The anti-social response is particularly pronounced for individuals who experienced an increase in depression or negative affect, which highlights the important role of psychological health as a potential mechanism through which the virus outbreak affected behaviour.

Keywords: Anti-social behaviour; Coronavirus; Risk preferences; Time preferences; Natural experiment; Panel data; Social media data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 D81 D91 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:206:y:2023:i:c:p:136-171

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.12.007

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