IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1578.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Herding and the intention to vaccinate against COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Epstein, Gil S.
  • Heizler, Odelia
  • Israeli, Osnat

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of herd behavior, or information cascades, on the willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19. We use the 2021/2022 wave of the European Social Survey combined with data from the organization Our World in Data and measure the herding behavior as the change in the share of vaccinated people in the population just prior to the individual's decision. Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, health status, COVID- 19 illness history, and pandemic-related features, the results show that the information cascade significantly increases vaccination intentions. This suggests that the decision on whether to vaccinate is affected by the behavior of others. Moreover, we find a U-shaped association between the herd effect and the share of the population that is vaccinated. Finally, the herd effect on the vaccination decisions of young people, people in poor health, and immigrants is higher than for others.

Suggested Citation

  • Epstein, Gil S. & Heizler, Odelia & Israeli, Osnat, 2025. "Herding and the intention to vaccinate against COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1578, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1578
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/313421/1/GLO-DP-1578.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angerer, Silvia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Rittmannsberger, Thomas, 2023. "How does the vaccine approval procedure affect COVID-19 vaccination intentions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Giulietti, Corrado & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves, 2023. "When reality bites: Local deaths and vaccine take-up," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. Joan Costa‐Font & Caroline Rudisill & Sayward Harrison & Luca Salmasi, 2023. "The social value of a SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccine: Willingness to pay estimates from four western countries," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(8), pages 1818-1835, August.
    4. Kairiza, Terrence & Kembo, George & Chigusiwa, Lloyd, 2023. "Herding behavior in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural Zimbabwe: The moderating role of health information under heterogeneous household risk perceptions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    5. Richard A. Easterlin & Kelsey J. O’Connor, 2023. "Three years of COVID-19 and life satisfaction in Europe: A macro view," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120(19), pages 2300717120-, May.
    6. Luis Á. Hierro & David Patiño & Pedro Atienza & Antonio J. Garzón & David Cantarero, 2023. "The effect of altruism on COVID-19 vaccination rates," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    7. Demirer, Riza & Kutan, Ali M. & Chen, Chun-Da, 2010. "Do investors herd in emerging stock markets?: Evidence from the Taiwanese market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 283-295, November.
    8. Agranov, Marina & Elliott, Matt & Ortoleva, Pietro, 2021. "The importance of Social Norms against Strategic Effects: The case of Covid-19 vaccine uptake," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Angerer, Silvia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Rittmannsberger, Thomas, 2024. "Beliefs about social norms and gender-based polarization of COVID-19 vaccination readiness," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Bohl, Martin T. & Branger, Nicole & Trede, Mark, 2017. "The case for herding is stronger than you think," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 30-40.
    3. Vassilios Babalos & Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta, 2014. "Revisiting Herding Behavior in REITs: A Regime-Switching Approach," Working Papers 201448, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    4. Malik, Saif Ullah & Elahi, Muhammad Ather, 2014. "Analysis of Herd Behavior Using Quantile Regression: Evidence from Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)," MPRA Paper 55322, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Pegah Dehghani & Ros Zam Zam Sapian, 2014. "Sectoral herding behavior in the aftermarket of Malaysian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 227-246, July.
    6. Tessier, Philippe & Wolff, François-Charles, 2025. "Did the COVID-19 pandemic change the importance of health for life satisfaction? Evidence from France," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    7. Patrick Carlin & Brian E. Dixon & Kosali I. Simon & Ryan Sullivan & Coady Wing, 2022. "How Undervalued is the Covid-19 Vaccine? Evidence from Discrete Choice Experiments and VSL Benchmarks," NBER Working Papers 30118, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Aghamolla, Cyrus & Hashimoto, Tadashi, 2020. "Information arrival, delay, and clustering in financial markets with dynamic freeriding," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 27-52.
    9. Kuo-Hwa Chang & Michael Nayat Young, 2019. "Portfolios Optimizations of Behavioral Stocks with Perception Probability Weightings," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 20(2), pages 817-845, November.
    10. Battisti, Michele & Kauppinen, Ilpo & Rude, Britta, 2024. "Breaking the silence: The effects of online social movements on gender-based violence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    11. Gębka, Bartosz & Wohar, Mark E., 2013. "International herding: Does it differ across sectors?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 55-84.
    12. Vo, Xuan Vinh & Phan, Dang Bao Anh, 2019. "Herd behavior and idiosyncratic volatility in a frontier market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 321-330.
    13. Mehmet Balcilar & Riza Demirer & Shawkat Hammoudeh & Ahmed Khalifa, 2013. "Do Global Shocks Drive Investor Herds in Oil-Rich Frontier Markets?," Working Papers 819, Economic Research Forum, revised Dec 2013.
    14. Pronkina, Elizaveta & Rees, Daniel I., 2022. "Predicting COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake," IZA Discussion Papers 15625, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Lee, Kyuseok, 2017. "Herd behavior of the overall market: Evidence based on the cross-sectional comovement of returns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 266-284.
    16. Angerer, Silvia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Rittmannsberger, Thomas, 2023. "How does the vaccine approval procedure affect COVID-19 vaccination intentions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    17. Xolani Sibande & Rangan Gupta & Riza Demirer & Elie Bouri, 2023. "Investor Sentiment and (Anti) Herding in the Currency Market: Evidence from Twitter Feed Data," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 56-72, January.
    18. Guo, Yawei & Li, Jianping & Li, Yehua & You, Wanhai, 2021. "The roles of political risk and crude oil in stock market based on quantile cointegration approach: A comparative study in China and US," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    19. Ankush Asri & Viola Asri & Baiba Renerte & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi & Joerg D Leuppi & Juergen Muser & Reto Nüesch & Dominik Schuler & Urs Fischbacher, 2022. "Which hospital workers do (not) want the jab? Behavioral correlates of COVID-19 vaccine willingness among employees of Swiss hospitals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(5), pages 1-20, May.
    20. Syed Riaz Mahmood Ali, 2022. "Herding in different states and terms: evidence from the cryptocurrency market," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(4), pages 322-336, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Herd Behavior; COVID-19; Vaccination; European Social Survey; Information Cascades;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:zbw:glodps:1578. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.html .

    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.