The Credibility of Communication in a Pandemic

Social distancing measures are typically recommended to contain the spread of infectious diseases. To improve the public's voluntary compliance, governments and health authorities seek to publicize timely information about the pandemic. Yet social planners may exaggerate or downplay their private information about the disease's severity to elicit their preferred level of social distancing. This is because the relative weight they assign to the costs of isolation over public health may be unbalanced, and people may not fully consider how their social distancing may influence others' infection risk. Consequently, messages and claims about the pandemic may be distrusted. The author investigates whether and when communication can be fully or partially credible despite apparent incentives for misrepresentation. The author finds that a government would communicate truthfully in equilibrium if and only if the disease severity levels are not too close to each other in the public's prior belief. Nevertheless, an increasing difference between the severity levels need not enhance the credibility of communication. Greater communication credibility may hurt social welfare. Moreover, as the government becomes more concerned about the costs of social distancing, its equilibrium messages may become more or less trustworthy. The article's results can benefit social planners and users of their messages (e.g., analysts, researchers, investors). © American Marketing Association 2023.

False Start? An Analysis of NFL Penalties With and Without Crowds

The lack of crowds at sports fixtures as a result of COVID-19 restrictions has allowed researchers a unique opportunity to examine the widely accepted convention of home advantage. This work takes a slightly different approach, by examining within game outcomes. Specifically using play-by-play data from the NFL, this paper asks whether the lack of crowds aided a Quarterback's ability to manipulate opposition defenses. Results suggest this was the case, though effects are not uniform by home and away team.

US domestic workers' willingness to accept agricultural field jobs

Worker scarcity in US agricultural field jobs has occurred often, particularly before COVID-19. Because US domestic workers typically forgo field jobs, their participation could potentially alleviate the scarcity. We implement an attribute-based discrete choice experiment administered before and during COVID-19 to evaluate US domestic workers' willingness to accept field jobs and valuation for non-pecuniary benefits. Domestic workers' average pre-pandemic reservation wage rate of $23.57 per hour was 68% larger than the 2019 national average field-worker wage of $13.99. Non-pecuniary benefits (insurance, housing, food allowance, and transportation) lower their reservation wage. Respondents' willingness to accept agricultural field work increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consumer preferences for grocery purchasing during the COVID-19 pandemic: a quantile regression approach

Purpose The objective is to determine if consumer preferences for grocery purchasing are impacted by the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether these preferences differ by demographic and psychographic characteristics. Design/methodology/approach The authors conduct an online discrete choice experiment (DCE) with 900 U.S. consumers to assess grocery shopping preferences under various scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. decreasing, constant and increasing cases). The attribute of interest is the purchasing method (i.e. in-store purchase, in-store pickup, curbside pickup and home delivery) with minimum order requirements, time windows and fees as secondary attributes. Heterogeneity in individual-level willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for the main attribute is analyzed by means of mixed logit and quantile regression techniques. Findings The mixed logit model reveals heterogeneity in WTP estimates for grocery purchasing methods across participants. According to estimates from quantile regressions, the heterogeneity is partly explained by the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the home delivery purchasing method is less preferred when the number of cases is decreasing. The results also show that consumer preferences for grocery shopping methods are affected more by psychographic characteristics than demographic characteristics. Consumers who comply with COVID-19 directives (e.g. wear face coverings) have stronger preferences for curbside pickup and home delivery, particularly at the tails of the WTP distributions. Originality/value Although there is much data on food consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic at the aggregate level, there are few analyses of grocery shopping preferences at the individual level. The study represents a first attempt to relate individuals' demographic and psychographic characteristics to their grocery shopping preferences during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus yielding numerous recommendations in terms of consumer segmentation.