Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15903
Authors: Flavio Toxvaerd
Abstract: This paper considers voluntary transmissive contacts between partially altruistic individuals in the presence of asymptomatic infection. Two different types of externalities from contacts are considered, infection externalities and socioeconomic externalities. When contacts are incidental, then externalities work through disease propagation. When contacts are essential, both infection and socioeconomic externalities are present. It is shown that for incidental contacts, equilibrium involves suboptimally high exposure whereas for essential contacts, equilibrium exposure is suboptimally low. An increase in altruism may thus increase or decrease disease transmission, depending on the type of contact under consideration. The analysis implies that policy to manage the epidemic should differentiate between different types of tranmissive activities.
Keywords: epidemics; altruism; infection externalities; socioeconomic externalities; disease control
JEL Codes: D83; I12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increased altruism (D64) | higher disease transmission (incidental contacts) (I12) |
| increased altruism (D64) | lower disease transmission (essential contacts) (I14) |
| incidental contacts (Y90) | higher exposure due to uninternalized infection externalities (D62) |
| essential contacts (Y80) | lower exposure due to unrecognized socioeconomic externalities (D62) |