Vaccinating to protect my peers: Analysing flu vaccinations and beliefs in small network settings

Individuals make economic decisions while being exposed to a multitude of risks that they cannot completely control. The current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as quarantine measures, have prompted changes in behaviour such as impulse purchasing, hoarding non-perishable goods, or defying government rules to social distance or self-isolate. This study proposes to understand changes in behavior involving financial decisions determined by the exogenous introduction of COVID-19 in people’s lives. This economic experiment will study the behavior of different age cohorts following the introduction of COVID-19, with economic behaviour data collected prior to the start of the pandemic, and aims to determine the differential effect of increased background risk (through COVID-19) and if this effect changes across age groups.