COVID-19 and people's health-wealth preferences: Information effects and policy implications

Shaun Hargreaves Heap, Christel Koop, Konstantinos Matakos, Asli Unan and Nina Sophie Weber

No mz67j, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Policy makers responding to COVID-19 need to know people’s relative valuation of health over wealth. Loosening and tightening lockdowns moves a society along a (perceived) health-wealth trade-off and the associated changes have to accord with the public’s relative valuation of health and wealth for maximum compliance. In our survey experiment (N=4,618), we randomize information provision on economic and health costs to assess public preferences over this trade-off in the UK and the US. People strongly prioritize health over wealth, but the treatment effects suggest these priorities will change as experience of COVID-19 deaths and income losses evolves. Information also has heterogeneous/polarizing effects. These results encourage policy caution. Individual differences in health-wealth valuation highlight this study’s importance because they map onto compliance with current lockdown measures.

Date: 2020-05-19
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:mz67j

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/mz67j

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