Lohmann PM, Gsottbauer E, You J, Kontoleon A. Anti-social behaviour and economic decision-making: Panel experimental evidence in the wake of COVID-19.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION 2023;
206:136-171. [PMID:
36531911 PMCID:
PMC9744689 DOI:
10.1016/j.jebo.2022.12.007]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 11/18/2022] [Accepted: 12/10/2022] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
We systematically examine the acute impact of exposure to a public health crisis on anti-social behaviour and economic decision-making using unique experimental panel data from China, collected just before the outbreak of COVID-19 and immediately after the first wave was overcome. Exploiting plausibly exogenous geographical variation in virus exposure coupled with a dataset of longitudinal experiments, we show that participants who were more intensely exposed to the virus outbreak became more anti-social than those with lower exposure, while other aspects of economic and social preferences remain largely stable. The finding is robust to multiple hypothesis testing and a similar, yet less pronounced pattern emerges when using alternative measures of virus exposure, reflecting societal concern and sentiment, constructed using social media data. The anti-social response is particularly pronounced for individuals who experienced an increase in depression or negative affect, which highlights the important role of psychological health as a potential mechanism through which the virus outbreak affected behaviour.
Collapse