The health-economy trade-off during the Covid-19 pandemic: Communication matters.

ABSTRACT: How do people balance concerns for general health and economic outcomes during a pandemic? And, how does the communication of this trade-off affect individual preferences? We address these questions using a field experiment involving around 2000 students enrolled in a large university in Italy. We design four treatments where the trade-off is communicated using different combinations of a positive framing that focuses on protective strategies and a negative framing which refers to potential costs. We find that positive framing on the health side induces students to give greater relevance to the health dimension. The effect is sizeable and highly effective among many different audiences, especially females. Importantly, this triggers a higher level of intention to adhere to social distancin

SUBMITTER: Carrieri V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8437286 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature