Title: Misreporting Private Information in a Pandemic: A Lab-Field Investigation

Speaker: Maoliang Ye

Time: Nov 11, 2021 (Thursday） 4：45-6：15pm

Address: Room 311 HongYuan Building

Host: Lei Zhen

Abstract: 

Citizens’ truthful reporting of some private information, e.g., contact history and symptoms, is the key to effective contact tracing, which in turn is crucial for stopping the spread of a pandemic. Many misreporting behaviors have been observed in the COVID-19 pandemic. But little is known about individual characteristics that are associated with these behaviors, neither about how to promote truthful reporting in a pandemic. Our pre-registered lab-field study investigates the association between a comprehensive set of economic preferences and various misreporting behaviors in the pandemic. We also test the effectiveness of several methods in promoting truthful reporting. Our results indicate a strong link between social preferences and misreporting behaviors in the pandemic, especially between lying preferences and these behaviors. Risk attitudes in several domains are also found closely related to them. Moreover, we find that the associated social cost is a key factor that enters misreporting decision making. Our results have rich implications for pandemic-fighting policies, e.g., which traits of the population to take into account when forecasting the spread of a pandemic, and how to implement effective interventions to promote truthful reporting.

Speaker Introduction:

Maoliang Ye is currently an associate professor and Ph.D. supervisor at the Business School of the Southern University of Science and Technology. He got his Ph.D. degree in Public Policy from Harvard University, served as a short-term consultant at the World Bank Group, and previously taught at Renmin University of China and Xiamen University. His main research areas are behavioral & experimental economics, public economics and public policy, managerial economics (labor and organization), development economics, and political economy. His research involves topics of organizational and (pro-) social behavior, social preference, social norm, honest and compliance, cooperation, trust, teamwork, incentive, payment scheme, fairness, public opinion, inequality, (re-) distribution, charity, social welfare, accountability, subjective well-being, mental health, and related social and economic psychology, etc. His publications appear in Management Science and other well-known international journals in management, economics and social sciences. He has been a PI for NSFC and other major grants.