Sarah Zaccagni and Paolo Falco share research results with expert group

In their newly published research Sarah Zaccagni and Paolo Falco find that  the reminder significantly increases people’s intentions to stay home when it emphasises the consequences of non-compliance for the respondent or his/her family, while it has not impact when the emphasis is on other people or the country as a whole.

Changes in intentions, however, translate into weaker changes in actions that are not statistically  significant. This is consistent with the existence of important intention-to-action gaps.

Only people who are in relatively poor health are significantly more likely to stay home after receiving the reminder with an emphasis on personal and family risks. This shows that while reminders may be useful to protect groups at risk by increasing their own compliance with social distancing, such a tool is unable to change the behaviour of those who face limited personal risks but could spread the disease.

You can read the entire paper here.

The research is of high relevance to policy makers and Paolo and Sarah was called in to inform the Danish expert group that advices the Danish government during the COVID-19 epidemic on the implications of re-opening the society.
The expert group has estimated the effects of the spread of COVID-19read and the hospital load. The expert group has considered the different scenarios below::

• Opening of outdoor dining for cafes and restaurants

• Opening of restaurants and cafes with indoor and outdoor dining

• Opening of 6-10. pm. in school and club offers

• Opening of 9-10. pm. in school and club offers

• Post-school completion of courses towards summer

• Normalization of homework in private companies (- ordinary physical activity)

Read the first report here - Danish only

You can visit the Department of Economics corona site here