Contagion Management through Information Disclosure

Jonas Hedlund (jonas.hedlund@utdallas.edu), Allan Hernández-Chanto (a.hernandezchanto@uq.edu.au) and Carlos Oyarzun
Additional contact information
Jonas Hedlund: University of Texas at Dallas
Allan Hernández-Chanto: School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

No 651, Discussion Papers Series from University of Queensland, School of Economics

Abstract: We analyze information disclosure as a policy instrument for contagion management in decentralized environments. A benevolent planner (e.g., the government) tests a fraction of the population to learn the infection rate. Individuals meet randomly and exert vigilance effort. Efforts factor in a passage function to probabilistically reduce contagion. We analyze the information disclosure policy that maximizes society’s expected welfare. When efforts are strategic substitutes, we provide sufficient conditions and necessary conditions for full disclosure to be optimal. When efforts are strategic complements, pooling intermediate infection rates is optimal whenever individuals’ equilibrium effort jumps from no-effort (inaction) to full-effort (frenzy).

Keywords: Contagion; information design; full-disclosure; obfuscation; vigilance effort; passage function; substitutes; complements. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 D47 D81 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-12-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/abstract/651.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Journal Article: Contagion management through information disclosure (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qld:uq2004:651

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers Series from University of Queensland, School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SOE IT (soe-it@economics.uq.edu.au).