Working Paper: NBER ID: w29463
Authors: Christopher Avery
Abstract: This paper analyzes a simple model of infectious disease where the incentives for individuals to reduce risks through endogenous social distancing take straightforward cost-benefit form. Since disease is transmitted through social interactions, the threat of spread of infection poses a collective action problem. Policy interventions such as lockdowns, testing, and mask-wearing serve, in part, as substitutes for social distancing. Provision of a vaccination is the only intervention that unambiguously reduces both the peak infection level and the herd immunity level of infection. Adoption of vaccination remains limited in a decentralized equilibrium, with resulting reproductive rate of disease Rt > 1 at the conclusion of vaccination. Vaccine mandates yield increases in vaccination rates and corresponding reductions in future infection rates but do not increase expected payoffs to individuals.
Keywords: social distancing; vaccination; infectious disease; public health; policy interventions
JEL Codes: D0; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| vaccination (I19) | reduced peak infection level (E31) |
| vaccination (I19) | reduced herd immunity level (I14) |
| vaccine mandates (Z28) | increased vaccination rates (I14) |
| increased vaccination rates (I14) | reduced future infection rates (I14) |
| current infection rate (J11) | increased social distancing (I14) |
| myopic behavior (E71) | social distancing choices (Z13) |
| infection rates (I14) | herd immunity (C92) |