IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/igi/igierp/666.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty and decision-making during a crisis: How to make policy decisions in the COVID-19 context?

Author

Listed:
  • Loïc Berger
  • Nicolas Berger
  • Valentina Bosetti
  • Itzhak Gilboa
  • Lars Peter Hansen
  • Christopher Jarvis
  • Massimo Marinacci
  • Richard D. Smith

Abstract

Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and its global impacts are unprecedented, decisions need to be made in a highly uncertain, complex and rapidly changing environment. In such a context, in which human lives and the economy are at stake, we argue that using ideas and constructs from modern decision theory, even informally, will make policymaking more a responsible and transparent process. Keywords model uncertainty, ambiguity, robustness, decision rules

Suggested Citation

  • Loïc Berger & Nicolas Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Itzhak Gilboa & Lars Peter Hansen & Christopher Jarvis & Massimo Marinacci & Richard D. Smith, 2020. "Uncertainty and decision-making during a crisis: How to make policy decisions in the COVID-19 context?," Working Papers 666, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    • Handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:666
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.unibocconi.it/igier/igi/wp/2020/666.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 2013. "Uncertainty Outside and Inside Economic Models," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-7, Nobel Prize Committee.
    2. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2004. "Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 133-173, October.
    3. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    4. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    5. Ilke Aydogan & Loic Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Ning Liu, 2018. "Three layers of uncertainty: an experiment," Working Papers 623, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Marcus Keogh-Brown & Richard Smith & John Edmunds & Philippe Beutels, 2010. "The macroeconomic impact of pandemic influenza: estimates from models of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and The Netherlands," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 11(6), pages 543-554, December.
    7. Lars Peter Hansen, 2014. "Nobel Lecture: Uncertainty Outside and Inside Economic Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(5), pages 945-987.
    8. Marisa Beck & Tobias Krueger, 2016. "The epistemic, ethical, and political dimensions of uncertainty in integrated assessment modeling," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(5), pages 627-645, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Economic policy

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bose, Subir & Daripa, Arup, 2023. "Eliciting second-order beliefs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Colo, Philippe, 2021. "Expert-based Knowledge: Communicating over Scientific Models," MPRA Paper 110434, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Loic BERGER & Nicolas BERGER & Valentina BOSETTI & Itzhak GILBOA & Lars Peter HANSEN & Christopher JARVIS & Massimo MARINACCI & Richard D. Smith, 2020. "Rational policymaking during a pandemic," Working Papers 2020-iRisk-02, IESEG School of Management.
    2. Loïc Berger & Massimo Marinacci, 2020. "Model Uncertainty in Climate Change Economics: A Review and Proposed Framework for Future Research," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(3), pages 475-501, November.
    3. Junyi Chai & Zhiquan Weng & Wenbin Liu, 2021. "Behavioral Decision Making in Normative and Descriptive Views: A Critical Review of Literature," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Loïc Berger & Louis Eeckhoudt, 2021. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Value of Diversification," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1639-1647, March.
    5. Simone Cerreia†Vioglio & Lars Peter Hansen & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci, 2020. "Making Decisions under Model Misspecification," Working Papers 2020-103, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    6. Ilke Aydogan & Loic Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Ning Liu, 2018. "Three layers of uncertainty: an experiment," Working Papers 623, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    7. Ilke Aydogan & Loïc Berger & Vincent Théroude, 2023. "More Ambiguous or More Complex? An Investigation of Individual Preferences under Uncertainty," Working Papers of BETA 2023-10, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    8. Berger, Loïc & Bosetti, Valentina, 2020. "Characterizing ambiguity attitudes using model uncertainty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 621-637.
    9. Loïc Berger & Louis Eeckhoudt, 2020. "Risk, Ambiguity, And The Value Of Diversification," Working Papers hal-02910906, HAL.
    10. Loic Berger & Valentina Bosetti, 2016. "Ellsberg Re-revisited: An Experiment Disentangling Model Uncertainty and Risk Aversion," Working Papers 2016.37, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    11. Ilke AYDOGAN & Loïc BERGER & Vincent THEROUDE, 2023. "More Ambiguous or More Complex? An Investigation of Individual Preferences under Model Uncertainty," Working Papers 2023-iRisk-02, IESEG School of Management.
    12. Ilke Aydogan & Loïc Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Ning Liu, 2023. "Three Layers of Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2209-2236.
    13. Milo Bianchi & Jean-Marc Tallon, 2019. "Ambiguity Preferences and Portfolio Choices: Evidence from the Field," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1486-1501, April.
    14. Massimo Marinacci, 2015. "Model Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(6), pages 1022-1100, December.
    15. repec:hal:journl:hal-03031751 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Hill, Brian, 2020. "Dynamic consistency and ambiguity: A reappraisal," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 289-310.
    17. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 2022. "Structured ambiguity and model misspecification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    18. Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo & Montrucchio, Luigi, 2012. "Probabilistic sophistication, second order stochastic dominance and uncertainty aversion," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 271-283.
    19. Jewitt, Ian & Mukerji, Sujoy, 2017. "Ordering ambiguous acts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 213-267.
    20. Jingyi Xue, 2020. "Preferences with changing ambiguity aversion," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(1), pages 1-60, February.
    21. Claudio A. Bonilla & Pablo A. Gutiérrez Cubillos, 2021. "The effects of ambiguity on entrepreneurship," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 63-80, February.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:igi:igierp:666. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.igier.unibocconi.it/ .

    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.