IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/2135.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contacts, Altruism and Competing Externalities

Author

Listed:
  • Toxvaerd, F.M.O.

Abstract

This paper considers voluntary transmissive contacts between partially altruistic individuals in the presence of asymptomatic infection. Two different types of externalities from contacts are considered, infection externalities and socioeconomic externalities. When contacts are incidental, then externalities work through disease propagation. When contacts are essential, both infection and socioeconomic externalities are present. It is shown that for incidental contacts, equilibrium involves suboptimally high exposure whereas for essential contacts, equilibrium exposure is suboptimally low. An increase in altruism may thus increase or decrease disease transmission, depending on the type of contact under consideration. The analysis implies that policy to manage the epidemic should differentiate between different types of tranmissive activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Toxvaerd, F.M.O., 2021. "Contacts, Altruism and Competing Externalities," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2135, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
  • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:2135
    Note: fmot2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe2135.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fève, Patrick & Assenza, Tiziana & Collard, Fabrice & Dupaigne, Martial & Hellwig, Christian & Kankanamge, Sumudu & Werquin, Nicolas, 2020. "The Hammer and the Dance: Equilibrium and Optimal Policy during a Pandemic Crisis," TSE Working Papers 20-1099, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Dow, William H. & Philipson, Tomas, 1996. "An empirical examination of the implications of assortative matching on the incidence of HIV," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 735-749, December.
    3. Rowthorn, Robert & Toxvaerd, Flavio, 2012. "The Optimal Control of Infectious Diseases via Prevention and Treatment," CEPR Discussion Papers 8925, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Kimball, Miles S., 1987. "Making sense of two-sided altruism," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-326, September.
    5. Flavio Toxvaerd, 2019. "Rational Disinhibition And Externalities In Prevention," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1737-1755, November.
    6. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 1999. "Systems of Benevolent Utility Functions," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 1(1), pages 71-100, January.
    7. David McAdams, 2020. "Nash SIR: An Economic-Epidemiological Model of Strategic Behavior During a Viral Epidemic," Papers 2006.10109, arXiv.org.
    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. Christopher Avery, 2021. "A Simple Model of Social Distancing and Vaccination," NBER Working Papers 29463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Konstantin Matthies & Flavio Toxvaerd, 2023. "Rather doomed than uncertain: risk attitudes and transmissive behavior under asymptomatic infection," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(1), pages 1-44, July.
    3. McAdams, David & Song, Yangbo & Zou, Dihan, 2023. "Equilibrium social activity during an epidemic," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    4. Bisin, Alberto & Gottardi, Piero, 2021. "Efficient policy interventions in an epidemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    5. Adriani, Fabrizio & Ladley, Dan, 2021. "Social distance, speed of containment and crowding in/out in a network model of contagion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 597-625.

    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. David E. Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2022. "Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 85-131, March.
    2. Gans, Joshua Samuel, 2020. "The Economic Consequences of R=1: Towards a Workable Behavioural Epidemiological Model of Pandemics," SocArXiv yxdc5, Center for Open Science.
    3. Makris, M. & Toxvaerd, F., 2020. "Great Expectations: Social Distancing in Anticipation of Pharmaceutical Innovations," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2097, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Carnehl, Christoph & Fukuda, Satoshi & Kos, Nenad, 2023. "Epidemics with behavior," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    5. Chryssi Giannitsarou & Stephen Kissler & Flavio Toxvaerd, 2021. "Waning Immunity and the Second Wave: Some Projections for SARS-CoV-2," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 321-338, September.
    6. Goenka, Aditya & Liu, Lin & Nguyen, Manh-Hung, 2021. "SIR economic epidemiological models with disease induced mortality," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    7. Farboodi, Maryam & Jarosch, Gregor & Shimer, Robert, 2021. "Internal and external effects of social distancing in a pandemic," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    8. Fong Yuk-Fai, 2009. "Private Information of Nonpaternalistic Altruism: Exaggeration and Reciprocation of Generosity," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, January.
    9. Pietro Garibaldi & Espen R. Moen & Christopher A. Pissarides, 2024. "Static and dynamic inefficiencies in an optimizing model of epidemics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 77(1), pages 9-48, February.
    10. Baril-Tremblay, Dominique & Marlats, Chantal & Ménager, Lucie, 2021. "Self-isolation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Peter Flaschel & Giorgos Galanis & Daniele Tavani & Roberto Veneziani, 2021. "Pandemics and Aggregate Demand: a Framework for Policy Analysis," Working Papers PKWP2025, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    12. Wolff, Francois-Charles & Laferrere, Anne, 2006. "Microeconomic models of family transfers," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 889-969, Elsevier.
    13. Miltiadis Makris, 2020. "Covid and Social Distancing with a Heterogenous Population," Studies in Economics 2002, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    14. Rowthorn, Robert & Toxvaerd, Flavio, 2012. "The Optimal Control of Infectious Diseases via Prevention and Treatment," CEPR Discussion Papers 8925, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Dasaratha, Krishna, 2023. "Virus dynamics with behavioral responses," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    16. Peter Flaschel & Giorgos Galanis & Daniele Tavani & Roberto Veneziani, 2021. "Pandemics and aggregate demand: A framework for policy analysis," CAMA Working Papers 2021-12, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    17. Saez-Marti, Maria & Weibull, Jorgen W., 2005. "Discounting and altruism to future decision-makers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 254-266, June.
    18. Hajime Hori, 2009. "Nonpaternalistic altruism and functional interdependence of social preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 32(1), pages 59-77, January.
    19. Goodkin-Gold, Matthew & Kremer, Michael & Snyder, Christopher M. & Williams, Heidi, 2022. "Optimal vaccine subsidies for endemic diseases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Gonzalez, Francisco M. & Lazkano, Itziar & Smulders, Sjak A., 2018. "Intergenerational altruism with future bias," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 436-454.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Epidemics; altruism; infection externalities; socioeconomic externalities; disease control;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    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:cam:camdae:2135. 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: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    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.