, as well as various seminar participants for their comments and suggestions. All errors are our own responsibility. 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 peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Disclaimer: This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB.

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.

No abstract

No abstract