Nora Lamersdorf

European Economic Review 161 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104625

Management science 68(9) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4461

Social preferences facilitate the internalization of health externalities, for example, by reducing mobility during a pandemic. We test this hypothesis using mobility data from 258 cities worldwide alongside experimentally validated measures of social preferences. Controlling for time-varying heterogeneity that could arise at the level at which mitigation policies are implemented, we find that they matter less in regions that are more altruistic, patient, or exhibit less negative reciprocity. In those regions, mobility falls ahead of lockdowns, and remains low after the lifting thereof. Our results elucidate the importance, independent of the cultural context, of social preferences in fostering cooperative behavior. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis.

Centre for Economic Policy Research

Franco-German Fiscal Policy Seminar 2025 Investing in Europe’s future