IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/minsoc/v21y2022i1d10.1007_s11299-022-00288-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Addressing threats like Covid: why we will tend to over-react and how we can do better

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Pingle

    (University of Nevada)

Abstract

A number of behavioral economic insights suggest we will tend to overreact, individually and collectively, to a new, serious, but low probability health threat, like Covid 19. To respond more effectively to such threats, we should recognize why we will tend to overreact and prepare in advance not to do so. We also should recognize the usefulness in giving lower level governments, non-profits, and less formal communities some ability to respond, rather than presuming we should address a significant threat like Covid using the highest level of government.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Pingle, 2022. "Addressing threats like Covid: why we will tend to over-react and how we can do better," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 21(1), pages 9-23, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:minsoc:v:21:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11299-022-00288-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11299-022-00288-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11299-022-00288-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11299-022-00288-6?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. David Meenagh & Patrick Minford, 2021. "A structural model of coronavirus behaviour for testing on data behaviour," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(30), pages 3515-3534, June.
    2. W. Kip Viscusi, 2021. "Economic lessons for COVID‐19 pandemic policies," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(4), pages 1064-1089, April.
    3. Chateauneuf, Alain & Eichberger, Jurgen & Grant, Simon, 2007. "Choice under uncertainty with the best and worst in mind: Neo-additive capacities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 538-567, November.
    4. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    5. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    6. James Broughel & Michael Kotrous, 2021. "The benefits of coronavirus suppression: A cost-benefit analysis of the response to the first wave of COVID-19 in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-20, June.
    7. Sumedha Gupta & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2020. "Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review," NBER Working Papers 28139, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Peter Boettke, 2010. "Is the only form of ‘reasonable regulation’ self regulation?: Lessons from Lin Ostrom on regulating the commons and cultivating citizens," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 283-291, June.
    9. Diana W. Thomas, 2019. "Regressive effects of regulation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 1-10, July.
    10. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    11. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Goolsbee, Austan & Syverson, Chad, 2021. "Fear, lockdown, and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    13. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones & Peter J. Klenow, 2020. "Trading Off Consumption and COVID-19 Deaths," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 42(1), pages 1-14, June.
    14. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    15. Thomas Döring & Jan Schnellenbach, 2011. "A tale of two federalisms: Germany, the United States and the ubiquity of centralization," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 83-102, March.
    16. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1325-1348, December.
    17. Steffen Juranek & Floris T. Zoutman, 2021. "The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1299-1320, October.
    18. Massimo Florio & Sara Colautti, 2005. "A logistic growth theory of public expenditures: A study of five countries over 100 years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 355-393, March.
    19. Chernozhukov, Victor & Kasahara, Hiroyuki & Schrimpf, Paul, 2021. "Causal impact of masks, policies, behavior on early covid-19 pandemic in the U.S," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 23-62.
    20. George Loewenstein, 2000. "Emotions in Economic Theory and Economic Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 426-432, May.
    21. Cass Sunstein & Richard Zeckhauser, 2011. "Overreaction to Fearsome Risks," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 435-449, March.
    22. James B. Bailey & Diana W. Thomas & Joseph R. Anderson, 2019. "Regressive effects of regulation on wages," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 91-103, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. López-Mendoza, Héctor & González-Álvarez, María A. & Montañés, Antonio, 2024. "Assessing the effectiveness of international government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    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. Joseph Teal & Petko Kusev & Renata Heilman & Rose Martin & Alessia Passanisi & Ugo Pace, 2021. "Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-14, August.
    2. Roy, Devjani & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2013. "Ignorance: Lessons from the Laboratory of Literature," Working Paper Series rwp13-039, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Gerald Spindler, 2011. "Behavioural Finance and Investor Protection Regulations," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 315-336, September.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:3:p:293-298 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Xingrong Hou & Jianmin Zeng & Hong Chen & Li Su, 2019. "The endowment effect in the genes: An exploratory study," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(3), pages 293-298, May.
    6. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    7. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    8. Steven G. Medema, 2020. "The Coase Theorem at Sixty," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1045-1128, December.
    9. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel Ballester, 2009. "A theory of reference-dependent behavior," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(3), pages 427-455, September.
    10. Lovric, M. & Kaymak, U. & Spronk, J., 2008. "A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-030-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    11. James K. Hammitt, 2020. "Valuing mortality risk in the time of COVID-19," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 129-154, October.
    12. Karle, Heiko & Schumacher, Heiner & Vølund, Rune, 2023. "Consumer loss aversion and scale-dependent psychological switching costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-237.
    13. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln & Dirk Krueger & André Kurmann & Etienne Lalé & Alexander Ludwig & Irina Popova, 2023. "The Fiscal and Welfare Effects of Policy Responses to the Covid-19 School Closures," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 35-98, March.
    14. Erica Mina Okada, 2010. "Uncertainty, Risk Aversion, and WTA vs. WTP," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 75-84, 01-02.
    15. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    16. Joaquín Gómez Miñambres & Mark Schneider, 2019. "Carrots and Sticks: Optimal Contracting with Skewness Preference and Ambiguity Aversion," Working Papers 19-02, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    17. Jae‐Do Song, 2023. "Excessive banking preference in emissions trading," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 448-458, January.
    18. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    19. Enrico Diecidue & Peter Wakker & Marcel Zeelenberg, 2007. "Eliciting decision weights by adapting de Finetti’s betting-odds method to prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 179-199, June.
    20. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Horst Zank, 2023. "Source and rank-dependent utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 949-981, May.
    21. Jürgen Eichberger & David Kelsey, 2014. "Optimism And Pessimism In Games," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 483-505, May.

    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:spr:minsoc:v:21:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11299-022-00288-6. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.