主题｜Topic：Influenza Vaccination and Occupational Social Intensity: Evidence from U.S. Workers
时间｜Time：10月13日（周五）14: 00-16: 00
地点｜Venue：文澴楼 539教室｜Class Room 539，WENHUAN
主讲｜Speaker
肖彦成，美国田纳西大学诺克斯维尔校区经济学博士，湖南工商大学经济与贸易学院讲师。主要研究领域为应用微观经济学、健康经济学以及网络理论。学术成果发表 European Economic Review、Journal of Public Economic Theory 等经济学国际知名学术期刊。
摘要｜Abstract
Socially active individuals interact with a relatively large number of people and are therefore more likely to spread infectious diseases. Vaccinating socially active individuals can have stronger marginal effects on controlling the disease spread than vaccinating others. We investigate whether socially active individuals are empirically more likely to get vaccinated against flu, utilizing the social intensity of occupations as a proxy for workers' overall social activeness. We find that workers in occupations with high social intensity are not significantly more likely to receive a flu shot, while those with a high level of disease exposure are. These results confirm previous findings that individuals' vaccination decisions are principally driven by private valuations. However, we provide the first direct evidence that individuals for whom vaccination would yield the greatest external benefits are not more likely to get vaccinated. This has immediate implications for targeting efforts for COVID-19 and flu vaccination, as increasing uptake among individuals for whom vaccination will yield large external social benefits is an important part of an optimal rollout.
