We provide one of the first systematic assessments of the development and determinants of economic anxiety at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Using a global dataset on internet searches and two representative surveys from the US, we document a substantial increase in economic anxiety during and after the arrival of the coronavirus. We also document a large dispersion in beliefs about the pandemic risk factors of the coronavirus, and demonstrate that these beliefs causally affect individuals' economic anxieties. Finally, we show that individuals' mental models of infectious disease spread understate non-linear growth and shape the extent of economic anxiety.

Purpose:The COVID-19 death-rate in Italy continues to climb, surpassing that in every other country. We implement one of the first nationally representative surveys about this unprecedented public health crisis and use it to evaluate the Italian government' public health efforts and citizen responses. Findings: (1) Public health messaging is being heard. Except for slightly lower compliance among young adults, all subgroups we studied understand how to keep themselves and others safe from the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Remarkably, even those who do not trust the government , or think the government has been untruthful about the crisis believe the messaging and claim to be acting in accordance. (2) The quarantine is beginning to have serious negative effects on the population's mental health. Policy Recommendations: Communications should move from explaining to citizens that they should stay at home to what they can do there. We need interventions that make staying following public health protocols more desirable, such as virtual social interactions, online social reading activities, classes, exercise routines, etc. -all designed to reduce the boredom of long term social isolation and to increase the attractiveness of following public health recommendations. Interventions like these will grow in importance as the crisis wears on around the world, and staying inside wears on people. 1 Roma Capitale (Municipality of Rome) convened our "COVID-19 International Behavioral Science Working Group" to (i) strengthen its public health policies and guidance, (ii) suggest new policies and guidance based on rigorous behavioral science, and (iii) develop empirical evidence about behavioral change. We report here empirical results and policy interventions aimed at achieving the objectives of the national Italian Government concerning the containment of the pandemic. Thanks to TIM S.p.A., Fastweb S.p.A., and Indra Italia S.p.A. for financial support. The current version of this paper is at GaryKing.org/covid-italy .

We thank our many volunteer translators, whose names are listed in the Appendix. We also thank Prolific for sponsoring the participants for the survey experiment and Aristeo Marras for data advice. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

We examine how income shocks affect the suicide rate in Indonesia. We use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the cash transfer's nationwide rollout, and corroborate the findings using a randomized experiment. Our estimates show that the cash transfers reduce the yearly suicide rate by 0.36 per 100,000 people, corresponding to an 18% decrease. Moreover, a different type of income shock, variability in agricultural productivity, also affects the suicide rate. The cash transfer program reduces the causal impact of the agricultural productivity shocks, suggesting an important role for policy interventions. Finally, we provide evidence for depression as a psychological mechanism.

We conducted a large-scale survey covering 58 countries and over 100,000 respondents between late March and early April 2020 to study beliefs and attitudes towards citizens’ and governments’ responses at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most respondents reported holding normative beliefs in support of COVID-19 containment measures, as well as high rates of adherence to these measures. They also believed that their government and their country’s citizens were not doing enough and underestimated the degree to which others in their country supported strong behavioral and policy responses to the pandemic. Normative beliefs were strongly associated with adherence, as well as beliefs about others’ and the government’s response. Lockdowns were associated with greater optimism about others’ and the government’s response, and improvements in measures of perceived mental well-being; these effects tended to be larger for those with stronger normative beliefs. Our findings highlight how social norms can arise quickly and effectively to support cooperation at a global scale.

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Many social movements face fierce resistance in the form of a countermovement. Therefore, when deciding to become politically active, a movement supporter has to consider both her own movement’s activity and that of the opponent. This paper studies the decision of a movement supporter to attend a protest when faced with a counterprotest. We implement two field experiments among supporters of a right- and left-leaning movement ahead of two protest–counterprotest interactions in Germany. Supporters were exposed to low or high official estimates about their own and the opposing group’s turnout. We find that the size of the opposing group has no effect on supporters’ protest intentions. However, as the own protest gets larger, supporters of the right-leaning movement become less while supporters of the left-leaning movement become more willing to protest. We argue that the difference is best explained by stronger social motives on the political left.

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