The importance of Social Norms against Strategic Effects: The case of Covid-19 vaccine uptake

We study how individual decisions are affected by those of other members of the society. We use the vaccine against COVID-19 as a case study and empirically estimate the magnitude of three key forces: Herding, Social Norms, and Free-riding. We find that Free-riding is dominated by the other two forces, and that Social Norms are a key driver of behavior. There is, however, substantial heterogeneity and systematic differences between people by demographics and their political preferences. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study shows that social norms are a key factor influencing behavior, while free-riding behavior is dominated by other forces. There are significant differences in behavior among different demographics.