Do traditional economic theories of free riding behavior explain spatial clustering of HPV vaccine uptake?

McKillop, Caitlin N.; Leonard, Tammy; Pruitt, Sandi L.; Tiro, Jasmin A.

doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100421

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These findings are robust to various scenarios and vignettes tested in our experiment. Our results are consistent with those by Betsch et al [ 38 ] and McKillop et al [ 29 ] showing that emphasizing the high levels of neighborhood vaccination and the social benefits of vaccination did not induce free riding behavior. Other work has shown that peer influence can inform vaccination decisions, with these effects increasing as overall vaccination rates increase [ 32 ].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…More generally, social norms have been shown to affect health behaviors across a variety of contexts [e.g. 29 – 34 , see also 35 ]. Focusing on social distancing to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Wu and Huber [ 33 ] analyze survey data and find that individuals in the US are more likely to practice social distancing when they report individuals in their social network are also doing so after accounting for other demographics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Experimental evidence that changing beliefs about mask efficacy and social norms increase mask wearing for COVID-19 risk reduction: Results from the United States and Italy

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the absence of widespread vaccination for COVID-19, governments and public health officials have advocated for the public to wear masks during the pandemic. The decision to wear a mask in public is likely affected by both beliefs about its efficacy and the prevalence of the behavior. Greater mask use in the community may encourage others to follow this norm, but it also creates an incentive for individuals to free ride on the protection afforded to them by others. We report the results of two vignette-based experiments conducted in the United States (n = 3,100) and Italy (n = 2,659) to examine the causal relationship between beliefs, social norms, and reported intentions to engage in mask promoting behavior. In both countries, survey respondents were quota sampled to be representative of the country’s population on key demographics. We find that providing information about how masks protect others increases the likelihood that someone would wear a mask or encourage others to do so in the United States, but not in Italy. There is no effect of providing information about how masks protect the wearer in either country. Additionally, greater mask use increases intentions to wear a mask and encourage someone else to wear theirs properly in both the United States and Italy. Thus, community mask use may be self-reinforcing.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental evidence that changing beliefs about mask efficacy and social norms increase mask wearing for COVID-19 risk reduction: Results from the United States and Italy

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These findings are robust to various scenarios and vignettes tested in our experiment. Our results are consistent with those by Betsch et al(19) and McKillop et al(22) showing that emphasizing the high levels of neighborhood vaccination and the social benefits of vaccination did not induce free riding behavior. Other work has shown that peer influence can inform vaccination decisions, with these effects increasing as overall vaccination rates increase.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Beliefs about Mask Efficacy and the Effect of Social Norms on Mask Wearing Intentions for COVID-19 Risk Reduction

Bokemper

Cucciniello

Rotesi

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the absence of widespread vaccination for COVID-19, governments and public health officials have advocated for the public to wear masks during the pandemic. The decision to wear a mask in public is likely affected by both beliefs about its efficacy and the prevalence of the behavior. Greater mask use in the community may encourage others to follow this norm, but it also creates an incentive for individuals to free ride on the protection afforded to them by others. We report the results of two vignette-based experiments conducted in the United States and Italy to examine the causal relationship between beliefs, social norms, and reported intentions to engage in mask promoting behavior. We find that providing factual information about how masks protect others increases the likelihood that someone would wear a mask or encourage others to do so in the United States, but not in Italy. There is no effect of providing information about how masks protect the wearer in either country. Additionally, greater mask use increases intentions to wear a mask and encourage someone else to wear theirs properly in both the United States and Italy. Thus, community mask use may be self-reinforcing.

show abstract

“…Although vaccine externalities are ubiquitous, the evidence for a free-rider problem is not always found. McKillop et al ( 2019 ) do not uncover any evidence of free-riding in Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination drives in Dallas, Texas, but observe a positive and significant relationship between individual vaccine choices and average neighborhood vaccine rates. In other words, they observe clusters.…”

Section: Externalities Public Goods and The Free-rider Problem With V...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Inframarginal externalities: COVID-19, vaccines, and universal mandates

Albrecht

Rajagopalan²

2022

Public Choice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

COVID-19 vaccine mandates are in place or being debated across the world. Standard neoclassical economics argues that the marginal social benefit from vaccination exceeds the marginal private benefit; everyone vaccinated against a given infectious disease protects others by not transmitting the disease. Consequently, private levels of vaccination will be lower than the socially optimal levels due to free-riding, which requires mandates to overcome the problem. We argue that universal mandates based on free-riding are less compelling for COVID-19. We argue that because the virus can be transmitted even after receiving the vaccine, most of the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine are internalized: vaccinated individuals are protected from the worst effects of the disease. Therefore, any positive externality may be inframarginal or policy irrelevant. Even when all the benefits are not internalized by the individual, the externalities mainly are local, mostly affecting family and closely associated individuals, requiring local institutional (private and civil society) arrangements to boost vaccine rates, even in a global pandemic. Economists and politicians must justify such universal vaccine mandates on some basis other than free-riding.

show abstract

Do traditional economic theories of free riding behavior explain spatial clustering of HPV vaccine uptake?

Cited by 7 publications

References 47 publications

Experimental evidence that changing beliefs about mask efficacy and social norms increase mask wearing for COVID-19 risk reduction: Results from the United States and Italy

Experimental evidence that changing beliefs about mask efficacy and social norms increase mask wearing for COVID-19 risk reduction: Results from the United States and Italy

Beliefs about Mask Efficacy and the Effect of Social Norms on Mask Wearing Intentions for COVID-19 Risk Reduction

Inframarginal externalities: COVID-19, vaccines, and universal mandates

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About