Social preferences during the COVID-19 pandemic: Health vs Wealth trade-off.

Background: The COVID-19 outbreak forced the federal U.S. government and local authorities to take unprecedented measures to contain the virus. Regulatory efforts culminated with the lockdown of major cities - which led to business shutdowns, stock market meltdown and to an increase in the unemployment rate across the country.

Although the federal government managed to secure a stimulus bill to boost the economy, it also started to argue that economic activity should be resumed. However, public health experts warn the government that restoring the pre-outbreak economic activity without ensuring the sufficient containment of the virus can exacerbate the dire condition on the ground. This debate generated two major opposing views. On one side of the aisle, pundits claim that economic inactivity can worsen public health issues via increased unemployment and food insecurity. In its turn, the other side argues opening up businesses without defeating the outbreak endangers the public health and goes against the supremacy of human life.

Motivation: The current project seeks to scrutinize this tension in the current public debate by focusing on the wealth-health trade-off. It seems that pundits (pro-wealth) who support the immediate restoration of economic activity are more inclined to favor public wealth over public health. However, the counter side (pro-health) puts a priority on securing public health. On another hand, opposing pundits rely and disseminate different subsets of facts in public discourse. The pro-wealth group constantly circulates facts about economic issues, and in its turn, the pro-healthy group emphasizes the role of social distancing in slowing down the spread of the virus. Our project seeks to measure the causal role of information in pushing the public to one of the opposing sides. Specifically, we will explore other-regarding preferences to elicit pro-wealth or pro-health views, and will test how providing appealing scientific information can change the relative percentage of supporters of the opposing views.