@booklet {3145846, title = {Which Beliefs? Behavior-Predictive Beliefs are Inconsistent with Information-Based Beliefs: Evidence from Covid-19}, year = {2023}, abstract = {

We investigate the relationship between (a) official information on COVID-19 infection and death case counts; (b) beliefs about such case counts, at present and in the future; (c) beliefs about average infection chance{\textemdash}in principle, directly calculable from (b); and (d) self-reported health-protective behavior. We elicit (b), (c), and (d) with a daily online survey in the US from March to August 2020 (N =~ 13,900). Beliefs about future infection cases are closely related to official information, but are inconsistent with beliefs about infection chances{\textemdash}risk perceptions{\textemdash}which are better predictors of reported behavior. We discuss potential implications for public communication of health-risk information.

}, url = {https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3859318}, author = {Ori Heffetz and Guy Ishai} }