The Willingness to Pay for a Hypothetical Vaccine for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Yoshiro Tsutsui (), Shosh Shahrabani, Eiji Yamamura (), Ryohei Hayashi, Youki Kohsaka and Fumio Ohtake
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Shosh Shahrabani: Head of Research Authority, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Emek Yezreel P.O. 1930600, Israel
Ryohei Hayashi: School of Economics & Management, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi 780-8515, Japan
Youki Kohsaka: Department of Management Information, Kyoto College of Economics, Kyoto 610-1195, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 23, 1-16

Abstract: This study investigates how people in Japan perceived the severity of and probability of infection from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and how their willingness to purchase a hypothetical vaccine depends on these perceptions and their risk attitudes. We conducted a large-scale panel survey three times between 13 March to 13 April 2020 in Japan. By analyzing the data, we found that the perception of COVID-19 became more serious. The estimation of the fixed effect model reveals that a person becomes more willing to pay for a vaccine as the person evaluates COVID-19 as a more severe disease, considers a higher probability of infection, and becomes more risk averse. Since the sensitivity of willingness to pay for the vaccine on risk aversion increased during the period, the change in risk attitude contributed to an increase in willingness through the sensitivity channel, while it decreased through the magnitude channel.

Keywords: COVID-19; vaccine; health belief model; risk attitude (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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