Do Social Networks Increase or Decrease the
COVID-19 Contagion Rate?
Dora L. Costa
Kenneth T. Sokoloff Professor of Economic
History
UCLA
Matthew E. Kahn
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor
of Economics and Business
Director of the 21st Century
Cities Initiative
Each nation will face less contagion risk if
we as individuals engage in social distancing.
But some people are choosing to continue to live their lives under
business as usual. Behavioral economics
assumes that many of us, like the college students who stormed the beaches of
Florida for spring break, focus on the here and now and thus lack the willpower
to self isolate at this critical juncture.
The desire to socialize pushes us to meet and
interact face to face, but social
capital, the bonds between us, can push us to self isolate. Social sanctions
and the fear of ostracism can play a role in encouraging pro-social behavior at
a time when only a few nations such as Italy (which is fining people for up to
$3,300) and India (which is using corporal punishment in some cases) are using
the formal power of the state to enforce social isolation. Social capital can decrease contagion risk
because it helps solve the classic free rider problem of who is willing to
engage in costly sacrifice for the common good. The free rider problem arises when socially
beneficial actions impose costs on individuals and each person hopes that every
other person will comply with the social norm. Our research documents that this
problem is exacerbated when people live in more unequal communities as measured
by income inequality and age and ethnic diversity.
Around the world, each nation is wrestling
with how to utilize both the formal rule of law and social sanction to achieve
the overall social goal of greater isolation compliance. In the biggest coronavirus success story
thus far, Taiwan, mandatory quarantines are enforced by
the neighborhood warden system, tracking of cell phones with follow-ups by
police officers if phones are shut off, and periodic administrative checks on
those in quarantine. In China,
neighborhood committees enforced quarantines by taking temperatures and checking
the travel permits of anyone entering a neighborhood. India has resorted to physical punishments
such as canings for those found out and about.
Italy introduced a formal deterrence system of fines and is using drones
to look for quarantine violators after cell phone data showed informal
deterrence failed. Israel’s Supreme
Court approved tracking the cell phones of citizens with coronavirus after
placing an injunction on the practice. South Korea has dramatically slowed its cases
with testing, contact tracing, and individual quarantines but without lockdowns
or authoritarian measures. Sweden is
relying on individuals’ personal responsibility and sacrifice to
self-quarantine. Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan
Löfven said; “The only way to manage this crisis is to face it as a society,
with everyone taking responsibility for themselves, for each other and for our
country.” The United States is relying on self-quarantines
as well.
An alternative to force is to rely on nudges
and social sanction to encourage compliance.
Authority figures such as University Presidents are nudging people to
isolate. The effectiveness of such
appeals hinges on who is an “influential” in guiding the choices of others. For
some it will be celebrities while for others it will be our leaders.
Without formal criminal or financial penalties
for noncompliance, each nation is asking its citizens to sacrifice for the
greater good. An interdisciplinary research agenda featuring contributions by
political scientists, economists and sociologists has studied this issue by
examining civic activities such as volunteering, filling out census forms or
giving blood.
Our own research has documented that income inequality in the city where one
lives is an important determinant of free riding and not being civically
engaged. National rankings of social
capital suggest that the U.S is ranked relatively low. Nations and communities featuring
less social capital are more likely to face a greater free rider challenge such
that fewer people comply with the social isolation goal and thus the disease
contagion accelerates.
We have also studied distinctive measures of
being civically engaged in high stakes settings in our work on the U.S Civil War. We have examined the
records of more than 40,000 men who fought in the US Civil War. One of our indicators of civic engagement was
not deserting from one’s unit. Desertion
increased one’s own survival probability but it put the other men in the unit
at risk. We document that soldiers are less likely to desert, and thus to
sacrifice for the greater good, when the men in their unit were of the same
ethnicity, occupation and age. The “band of brothers” mentality encouraged
civic engagement. This camaraderie
built up in these war communities helped men survive extreme conditions such as
those in the notorious POW camp of Andersonville. Those imprisoned with their buddies could
help each other and were more likely to survive.
Social isolation imposes higher costs on
different people. Richer, more educated
people have an easier time engaging in self isolation because their jobs can be
completed at home and these people live in nicer, roomier spaces. Those who find Facebook and Skype to be a
close substitute for face to face interaction, will face a lower cost of
physical isolation. More social people
will suffer more from social distancing but since these people have more
friends who in turn are likely to have more friends, it is exactly for this
group that we need to encourage them to sacrifice in the short run.
Nobody intends to accelerate contagion
risk. Within tight social networks such
as families, loved ones know who is the most likely to break the social
rules. Norm enforces within such family
networks have an incentive to anticipate these tendencies and to take actions
to discourage such socially costly risk taking.
Social pressure through the actions of families, neighbors and
communities and celebrities influence our behavior and help to achieve
aggregate risk reduction.