The behavioural economics of government responses to COVID-19

Abstract

How have governments around the world responded to the novel coronavirus first discovered in China’s Wuhan province in late 2019 (the cause of COVID-19 disease)? What has driven governments’ responses, and to what extent can behavioural economics help us to understand the policies that have been enacted? In this short paper I examine the responses of four countries, mapped against media reporting, local context and viral spread, and discuss how core behavioural economics insights can illuminate the possible reasons for those responses. The paper concludes with observations about how these insights can be used for good by governments – in predicting public reactions, and in setting and selling government policy – the next time that the world faces a pandemic.