Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227280 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13753
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper contributes to the literature on public health communication by studying how the framing of a message relaying the forecast impact of COVID-19 prevention measures affects compliance behaviour amongst both the young and old. A representative sample of survey respondents in the UK and US, along with selected respondents in Italy, were presented with forecasts for the number of deaths from COVID-19 in their countries with and without public adherence to various preventive behaviours. We experimentally varied whether this information was presented in terms of likely deaths or lives saved. The lives saved frame increases reported protective behaviours, but only amongst older respondents. We present evidence consistent with the hypothesis that framing is likelier to affect decisions whose consequences are felt by oneself (i.e. protective behaviours by the elderly) rather than solely others (i.e. protective behaviours amongst the young).
Subjects: 
framing
protective behaviours
cooperation
age
gender
COVID-19
JEL: 
D03
D83
D84
D85
J16
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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