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Public and private incentives for self-protection.
François Salanié1, Nicolas Treich1
1Toulouse School of Economics, INRAE, Université Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France.
The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review
|August 25, 2020
Summary
Governments may encourage self-protection measures like mask-wearing during epidemics. However, increased individual safety can lead to more people outside, raising collective infection risk and offsetting benefits.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Public Health Policy
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Governments promote individual self-protection measures during epidemics, such as mask-wearing.
- These measures can inadvertently increase social exposure by reducing perceived personal risk.
- This creates complex dynamics between individual behavior and population-level health outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To model the "collective offsetting effect" of self-protection behaviors.
- To analyze the positive externality of reduced disease transmission from protective measures.
- To determine optimal social planner interventions for self-protection efforts.
Main Methods:
- Development of a simple mathematical model.
- Integration of individual risk reduction and population-level infection dynamics.
- Analysis of externalities and social welfare implications.
Main Results:
- Individual self-protection can lead to increased social contact, potentially increasing overall infection risk.
- Mask-wearing provides a positive externality by reducing transmission to others.
- The net effect depends on the balance between individual risk compensation and the externality.
Conclusions:
- Social planners must consider the "collective offsetting effect" when evaluating self-protection policies.
- Interventions should be designed to maximize public health benefits by balancing individual incentives and population risk.
- Further research can explore specific policy designs for different epidemic scenarios.
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