IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2010.12350.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Love Thy Neighbor? Perceived Community Abidance and Private Compliance to COVID-19 Norms in India

Author

Listed:
  • Upasak Das
  • Prasenjit Sarkhel
  • Sania Ashraf

Abstract

Compliance with measures like social distancing, hand-washing and wearing masks have emerged as the dominant strategy to combat health risk from the COVID-19 pandemic. These behaviors are often argued to be pro-social, where one must incur private cost to benefit or protect others. Using self-reported data across India (n=934) through online survey, we assess if changes in perceived community compliance can predict changes in individual compliance behavior, controlling for the potential confounders. We observe statistically significant and positive relationship between the two, even after accounting for omitted variable bias, plausibly allowing us to view the results from a plausible causal lens. Further, we find subsequent lockdowns such as the ones imposed in India, have a detrimental effect on individual compliance though the gains from higher perceived community compliance seems to offset this loss. We also find that sensitization through community can be particularly effective for people with pre-existing co-morbidities. Our findings underscore the need for multi-level behavioral interventions involving local actors and community institutions to sustain private compliance during the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Upasak Das & Prasenjit Sarkhel & Sania Ashraf, 2020. "Love Thy Neighbor? Perceived Community Abidance and Private Compliance to COVID-19 Norms in India," Papers 2010.12350, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2010.12350
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.12350
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    2. Paul Collier & Anthony J. Venables, 2014. "Closing coal: economic and moral incentives," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(3), pages 492-512.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Upasak Das & Udayan Rathore & Prasenjit Sarkhel, 2020. "Social Diversity and Spread of Pandemic: Evidence from India," Papers 2011.05839, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Upasak Das & Prasenjit Sarkhel & Sania Ashraf, 2022. "Love Thy Neighbour? Perceived Community Abidance and Private Compliance to COVID-19 Norms in India," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 23(1), pages 30-51, March.
    2. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "Anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity: Evidence from voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1047-1060, June.
    3. Partha Dasgupta & Dale Southerton & Alistair Ulph & David Ulph, 2016. "Consumer Behaviour with Environmental and Social Externalities: Implications for Analysis and Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(1), pages 191-226, September.
    4. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Svedsäter, Henrik, 2012. "Self-image and valuation of moral goods: Stated versus actual willingness to pay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 879-891.
    5. Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Sharma, Swati & Weber, Clas, 2024. "Pro-environmental behavior and subjective well-being: Culture has a role to play," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    6. Nyborg, Karine, 2011. "I don't want to hear about it: Rational ignorance among duty-oriented consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 263-274, August.
    7. Leonardo Bursztyn & Michael Callen & Bruno Ferman & Saad Gulzar & Ali Hasanain & Noam Yuchtman, 2014. "Identifying Ideology: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Americanism in Pakistan," NBER Working Papers 20153, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Claudia Olivetti & Eleonora Patacchini & Yves Zenou, 2020. "Mothers, Peers, and Gender-Role Identity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 266-301.
    9. Makoto Kakinaka & Koji Kotani, 2011. "An interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on voluntary contributions to a public good in a large economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 29-41, April.
    10. Markus Kitzmueller, 2008. "Economics and Corporate Social Responsibility," Economics Working Papers ECO2008/37, European University Institute.
    11. Marc Daube & David Ulph, 2016. "Moral Behaviour, Altruism and Environmental Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(2), pages 505-522, February.
    12. Kumar, Rahul & Maity, Bipasha, 2022. "Cultural norms and women’s health: Implications of the practice of menstrual restrictions in Nepal," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    13. Dasgupta, Partha & Southerton, Dale & Ulph, Alistair & Ulph, David, 2014. "Consumer Behaviour in a Social Context: Implications for Environmental Policy," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-10, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2016. "Morality: evolutionary foundations and policy implications," TSE Working Papers 16-702, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    15. Kang, Seongill, 2022. "The interactive dynamics of autonomous and heteronomous motives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 11-26.
    16. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Julia Blasch & Mehdi Farsi, 2012. "Retail demand for voluntary carbon offsets - A choice experiment among Swiss consumers," IED Working paper 12-18, IED Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich.
    18. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2017. "Strategic Behavior of Moralists and Altruists," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-21, September.
    19. Sreevidya Ayyar & Uta Bolt & Eric French & Cormac O'Dea, 2024. "Imagine your life at 25: Gender conformity and later-life outcomes," IFS Working Papers W24/32, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Svedsäter, Henrik, 2011. "Self-Image and Valuation of Moral Goods: Stated versus Real Willingness to Pay," Working Papers in Economics 484, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2010.12350. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.