Preferences and Beliefs during the “Great Confinement”: The Saver and Risk[Préférences et croyances pendant le « grand confinement » : l’épargnant face au risque]

Is the psyche of individuals susceptible to change during "crises"? Or conversely, to paraphrase Stigler and Becker [1977], are individual preferences "rock solid", in other words, stable over time? Even if, theoretically, economists favor preference stability over instability, knowing whether "shocks," whether demographic, health, natural, conflict or economic, are likely to modify the parameters of individuals' tastes and, consequently, their behavior, is an important question for public policy. Many empirical studies now seek to test whether or not preferences change over time, or whether they are durably modified by life events or structural shocks faced by individuals. The conclusions depend on the origin of the shocks, the methodology adopted to measure preferences and the nature of the questions asked. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic shock is a new opportunity to study this question of taste stability. There are already many studies that have analyzed the impact of the Covid crisis on savers, but they do not reach a consensus on the meaning of the impact of the health crisis on preferences. For France, the statistical treatments carried out here on the basis of the Pat€r 2020 survey show a stability of risk preferences: The "great containment" would thus have had little impact on savers' preferences.