Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

12-2021

Abstract

Limiting the spread of contagious diseases can involve both government-managed and voluntary efforts. Governments have a number of policy options beyond direct intervention that can shape individuals’ responses to a pandemic and its associated costs. During its first wave of COVID-19 cases, Singapore was among a few countries that attempted to adjust behavior through the announcement of detailed case information. Singapore's Ministry of Health maintained and shared precise, daily information detailing local travel behavior and residences of COVID-19 cases. We use this policy along with device-level cellphone data to quantify how local and national COVID-19 case announcements trigger differential behavioral changes. We find evidence that individuals are three times more responsive to outbreaks in granularly defined locales. Conditional on keeping infection rates at a manageable level, the results suggest economic value in this type of transparency by mitigating the scope of precautionary activity reductions.

Keywords

COVID-19, Transparency, Precautionary behavior, pandemic

Discipline

Asian Studies | Behavioral Economics | Communication | Public Health

Research Areas

Applied Microeconomics

Publication

Economic Analysis and Policy

Volume

72

First Page

700

Last Page

714

ISSN

0313-5926

Identifier

10.1016/j.eap.2021.10.007

Publisher

Elsevier

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2021.10.007

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