What Have We Learned from Behavioural Economics for the COVID-19 Response?

Abstract

In this chapter, we distil and summarise the key lessons we have learned during the pandemic and the subsequent policy responses from behavioural economics, that is, the interdisciplinary field that combines and cross-fertilises insights from economics and psychology. There are three main take-home lessons, we believe, that could help advance our understanding of human behaviour in a time of a pandemic and for enhancing the preparedness of international institutions and governments for future pandemics and epidemics: (i) people are heterogeneous, and we should therefore fully account for human heterogeneity; (ii) our behavioural interventions must be heterogeneous as well – we need to use a full and diverse spectrum of behavioural interventions – going beyond 'nudges' when needed – and we should acknowledge heterogeneity in individual responses to such interventions; and (iii) as it is not clear upfront what will work for whom, we should engage more systematically with randomised controlled experiments for future pandemic responses.

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