IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v91y2023ics0167629623000796.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cognitive ability, health policy, and the dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination

Author

Listed:
  • Elinder, Mikael
  • Erixson, Oscar
  • Öhman, Mattias

Abstract

We examine the relationship between cognitive ability and prompt COVID-19 vaccination using individual-level data on more than 700,000 individuals in Sweden. We find a strong positive association between cognitive ability and swift vaccination, which remains even after controlling for confounding variables with a twin-design. The results suggest that the complexity of the vaccination decision may make it difficult for individuals with lower cognitive abilities to understand the benefits of vaccination. Consistent with this, we show that simplifying the vaccination decision through pre-booked vaccination appointments alleviates almost all of the inequality in vaccination behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Öhman, Mattias, 2023. "Cognitive ability, health policy, and the dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:91:y:2023:i:c:s0167629623000796
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102802
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629623000796
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102802?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bonander, Carl & Ekman, Mats & Jakobsson, Niklas, 2022. "Vaccination nudges: A study of pre-booked COVID-19 vaccinations in Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    2. Alexander Karaivanov & Dongwoo Kim & Shih En Lu & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2022. "COVID-19 vaccination mandates and vaccine uptake," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1615-1624, December.
    3. Elizabeth J. Williamson & Alex J. Walker & Krishnan Bhaskaran & Seb Bacon & Chris Bates & Caroline E. Morton & Helen J. Curtis & Amir Mehrkar & David Evans & Peter Inglesby & Jonathan Cockburn & Helen, 2020. "Factors associated with COVID-19-related death using OpenSAFELY," Nature, Nature, vol. 584(7821), pages 430-436, August.
    4. Liu, Xin & Zhao, Ning & Li, Shu & Zheng, Rui, 2022. "Opt-out policy and its improvements promote COVID-19 vaccinations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    5. Per-Anders Edin & Peter Fredriksson & Martin Nybom & Björn Öckert, 2022. "The Rising Return to Noncognitive Skill," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 78-100, April.
    6. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    7. Florian H. Schneider & Pol Campos-Mercade & Stephan Meier & Devin Pope & Erik Wengström & Armando N. Meier, 2023. "Financial incentives for vaccination do not have negative unintended consequences," Nature, Nature, vol. 613(7944), pages 526-533, January.
    8. Brigitte C. Madrian & Dennis F. Shea, 2001. "The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1149-1187.
    9. J. Peter Nilsson, 2017. "Alcohol Availability, Prenatal Conditions, and Long-Term Economic Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(4), pages 1149-1207.
    10. Katherine L. Milkman & Linnea Gandhi & Sean F. Ellis & Heather N. Graci & Dena M. Gromet & Rayyan S. Mobarak & Alison M. Buttenheim & Angela L. Duckworth & Devin Pope & Ala Stanford & Richard Thaler &, 2022. "A citywide experiment testing the impact of geographically targeted, high-pay-off vaccine lotteries," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(11), pages 1515-1524, November.
    11. Jamie Murphy & Frédérique Vallières & Richard P. Bentall & Mark Shevlin & Orla McBride & Todd K. Hartman & Ryan McKay & Kate Bennett & Liam Mason & Jilly Gibson-Miller & Liat Levita & Anton P. Martine, 2021. "Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Li, Danyang & Hawley, Zackary & Schnier, Kurt, 2013. "Increasing organ donation via changes in the default choice or allocation rule," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1117-1129.
    13. Hans Grönqvist & J. Peter Nilsson & Per-Olof Robling, 2020. "Understanding How Low Levels of Early Lead Exposure Affect Children’s Life Trajectories," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3376-3433.
    14. Acar-Burkay, Sinem & Cristian, Daniela-Carmen, 2022. "Cognitive underpinnings of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    15. Erik Lindqvist & Roine Vestman, 2011. "The Labor Market Returns to Cognitive and Noncognitive Ability: Evidence from the Swedish Enlistment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 101-128, January.
    16. Ian J. Deary & W. David Hill & Catharine R. Gale, 2021. "Intelligence, health and death," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 416-430, April.
    17. Scott Duke Kominers & Alex Tabarrok, 2022. "Vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic: lessons from failure and success [‘Many Say They’re Confused About Whether, When to Get Second Booster’]," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 719-741.
    18. Spencer Banzhaf & Lala Ma & Christopher Timmins, 2019. "Environmental Justice: The Economics of Race, Place, and Pollution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 185-208, Winter.
    19. Hengchen Dai & Silvia Saccardo & Maria A. Han & Lily Roh & Naveen Raja & Sitaram Vangala & Hardikkumar Modi & Shital Pandya & Michael Sloyan & Daniel M. Croymans, 2021. "Behavioural nudges increase COVID-19 vaccinations," Nature, Nature, vol. 597(7876), pages 404-409, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carl Bonander & Mats Ekman & Niklas Jakobsson, 2023. "When do default nudges work?," Oxford Open Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 2, pages 391-425.
    2. Bonander, Carl & Ekman, Mats & Jakobsson, Niklas, 2022. "Vaccination nudges: A study of pre-booked COVID-19 vaccinations in Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    3. Colmer, Jonathan & Voorheis, John, 2020. "The grandkids aren't alright: the intergenerational effects of prenatal pollution exposure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108495, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Upravitelev, A., 2023. "Efficacious methods of restraining COVID-19 through behavioral public policy," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 203-222.
    5. Liu, Xin & Zhao, Ning & Li, Shu & Zheng, Rui, 2022. "Opt-out policy and its improvements promote COVID-19 vaccinations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    6. Giulietti, Corrado & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves, 2021. "When Reality Bites: Local Deaths and Vaccine Take-Up," GLO Discussion Paper Series 999, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Waldenstrom, Daniel & Bastani, Spencer, 2020. "The Ability Gradient in Bunching," CEPR Discussion Papers 14599, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Bäckström, Peter, 2023. "Swedish Veterans After Bosnia: The Relationship Between Military Deployment and Labour Market Marginalisation," Umeå Economic Studies 1011, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    9. Michael Böhm & Daniel Metzger & Per Strömberg, 2022. "“Since You’re So Rich, You Must Be Really Smart”: Talent, Rent Sharing, and the Finance Wage Premium," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 147, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    10. Aghion, Philippe & Bergeaud, Antonin & Blundell, Richard & Griffith, Rachel, 2023. "Social Skills and the Individual Wage Growth of Less Educated Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 16456, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Löfgren, Åsa & Nordblom, Katarina, 2020. "A theoretical framework of decision making explaining the mechanisms of nudging," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 1-12.
    12. Huang, Qingyang & Liu, Chang & Zhou, Li-An, 2020. "Farewell to the God of Plague: Estimating the effects of China's Universal Salt Iodization on educational outcomes," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 20-36.
    13. Hensvik, Lena & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2023. "The skill-specific impact of past and projected occupational decline," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Fang, Guanfu & Zhu, Ying, 2022. "Long-term impacts of school nutrition: Evidence from China’s school meal reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    15. Matthew J. Lindquist & Theodor Vladasel, 2022. "Are entrepreneurs more upwardly mobile?," Economics Working Papers 1841, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    16. Böhm, Michael Johannes & Metzger, Daniel & Strömberg, Per, 2022. ""Since You're So Rich, You Must Be Really Smart": Talent, Rent Sharing, and the Finance Wage Premium," IZA Discussion Papers 15337, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Jo Blanden & Matthias Doepke & Jan Stuhler, 2022. "Education inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp1849, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Jerch, Rhiannon & Kahn, Matthew E. & Lin, Gary C., 2023. "Local public finance dynamics and hurricane shocks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    19. Denvil Duncan & Danyang Li, 2018. "Liar Liar: Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Confirmation‐Reports on Dishonesty," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(3), pages 742-770, January.
    20. Patrick Kline & Christopher R. Walters, 2016. "Evaluating Public Programs with Close Substitutes: The Case of HeadStart," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1795-1848.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:91:y:2023:i:c:s0167629623000796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.