Encouraging the resumption of economic activity after COVID-19: Evidence from a large scale-field experiment in China

Juan Palacios, Yichun Fan, Erez Yoeli, Jianghao Wang, Yuchen Chai, Weizeng Sun, David G. Rand and Siqi Zheng
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Juan Palacios: a Sustainable Urbanization Lab, Center for Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;
Yichun Fan: a Sustainable Urbanization Lab, Center for Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;
Erez Yoeli: b Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142;
Jianghao Wang: a Sustainable Urbanization Lab, Center for Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;; c Institute of Geographic Sciences & Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China;
Yuchen Chai: a Sustainable Urbanization Lab, Center for Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;
Weizeng Sun: d School of Economics, Central University of Finance and Economics, 100081 Beijing, China;
David G. Rand: b Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142;; e Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Siqi Zheng: a Sustainable Urbanization Lab, Center for Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022, vol. 119, issue 5, e2100719119

Abstract: When the COVID-19 pandemic ends and it becomes safe to resume economic behavior, we will need to find effective ways of communicating that it is truly safe to do so. In this study, we tested a simple “nudge” that informed people of the proportion of their neighbors who were planning to visit a restaurant over the weekend, so that those who felt that restaurants were very unsafe would realize that many others felt comfortable visiting them. Our nudge successfully motivated such hesitant individuals to increase restaurant visits by 37%, and additional analyses indicate they indeed felt that visiting restaurants was safer.

Keywords: COVID-19; descriptive norms; field experiment; voluntary economic resumption; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2100719119

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