The Impact of an Epidemic: Experimental Evidence on Preference Stability from Wuhan
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 111,
May 2021
(pp. 302-06)
Abstract
We examine how the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the Hubei province of China impacted pro-social behavior and attitudes toward risk and uncertainty. The study repeatedly applies a panel of financially incentivized individual and strategic decision tasks via the WeChat social media platform to a population of preregistered Wuhan University students. We find that the initial outbreak coupled with the lock-down of Wuhan City led to an uptick in altruism, trust, and ambiguity aversion and a downtick in risk aversion. Over the remaining samples, we observed that all measurements return to baseline levels except for risk aversion.Citation
Shachat, Jason, Matthew J. Walker, and Lijia Wei. 2021. "The Impact of an Epidemic: Experimental Evidence on Preference Stability from Wuhan." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 111: 302-06. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20211002Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- P36 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training: Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
- I15 Health and Economic Development
- D64 Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
- D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis