Subjective beliefs and economic preferences during the COVID-19 pandemic

Glenn Harrison, Andre Hofmeyr (), Harold Kincaid, Brian Monroe (), Don Ross (), Mark Schneider () and J. Todd Swarthout ()
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Andre Hofmeyr: University of Cape Town
Brian Monroe: University College Dublin
Don Ross: Georgia State University
Mark Schneider: Georgia State University
J. Todd Swarthout: Georgia State University

Experimental Economics, 2022, vol. 25, issue 3, No 2, 795-823

Abstract: Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic presents a remarkable opportunity to put to work all of the research that has been undertaken in past decades on the elicitation and structural estimation of subjective belief distributions as well as preferences over atemporal risk, patience, and intertemporal risk. As contributors to elements of that research in laboratories and the field, we drew together those methods and applied them to an online, incentivized experiment in the United States. We have two major findings. First, the atemporal risk premium during the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to change significantly compared to before the pandemic, consistent with theoretical results of the effect of increased background risk on foreground risk attitudes. Second, subjective beliefs about the cumulative level of deaths evolved dramatically over the period between May and November 2020, a volatile one in terms of the background evolution of the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Risk preferences; Time preferences; Subjective beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D81 D83 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10683-021-09738-3

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