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Ambiguity and self-protection: evidence from social distancing under the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Source :
-
Japanese economic review (Oxford, England) [Jpn Econ Rev (Oxf)] 2022 Oct 01, pp. 1-32. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Oct 01. - Publication Year :
- 2022
- Publisher :
- Ahead of Print
-
Abstract
- This paper studies how people make decisions over preventive behaviors under ambiguity (i.e., Knightian uncertainty) where they do not even know the probability of a loss. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, scientific uncertainty makes it hard to evaluate not only whether one will be infected, but also probabilities such as the infection rate. We constructed a simple model and demonstrated how its effect was heterogeneous depending on ambiguity-attitudes. Motivated by the model, we further conducted a survey experiment in Japan where we manipulated the information regarding scientific uncertainty on COVID-19. We found that higher ambiguity induced by scientific uncertainty increased the level of social distancing among ambiguity-loving people, but such evidence was nonexistent for ambiguity-averse counterparts.<br />Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42973-022-00120-3.<br /> (© Japanese Economic Association 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1352-4739
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Japanese economic review (Oxford, England)
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 36213493
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s42973-022-00120-3