We examine the net benefits of social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19 in USA. Social distancing saves lives but imposes large costs on society due to reduced economic activity. We use epidemiological and economic forecasting to perform a rapid benefit–cost analysis of controlling the COVID-19 outbreak. Assuming that social distancing measures can substantially reduce contacts among individuals, we find net benefits of about $5.2 trillion in our benchmark case. We examine the magnitude of the critical parameters that might imply negative net benefits, including the value of statistical life and the discount rate. A key unknown factor is the speed of economic recovery with and without social distancing measures in place. A series of robustness checks also highlight the key role of the value of mortality risk reductions and discounting in the analysis and point to a need for effective economic stimulus when the outbreak has passed.

Traditionally, information has been assumed to never harm consumers, a notion recently challenged. Salience nudges have been argued to evoke negative emotions, therefore acting as “emotional taxes”. I design a hypothetical restaurant meal experiment to analyze the emotional and short-term consumer welfare impact of a calorie salience nudge (calorie menu labeling) – a policy implemented nationwide in the U.S. in 2018. I find that a calorie salience nudge may act as an emotional tax, but only for some – there is considerable heterogeneity in the emotional response to the nudge. In particular, the nudge emotionally taxes people with low eating self-control, while it emotionally subsidizes those with higher levels of eating self-control. It therefore emotionally taxes the “right” people. However, people with lower levels of self-control may experience fewer benefits from the nudge – the nudge causes them to adjust their high calorie meal consumption by less than do those with higher self-control. It is therefore unsurprising that consumers with lower self-control attach a lower (a negative) value to the calorie salience nudge. Overall, the calorie salience nudge positively affects consumer welfare, although heterogeneity over consumers is substantial – the consumer value ranges from positive to negative. I find no distributional effects over income from the calorie salience nudge.

The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a tremendous scientific response to the current global pandemic. However, vaccines per se do not save lives and restart economies. Their success depends on the number of people getting vaccinated. We used a survey experiment to examine the impact on vaccine intentions of a variety of public health messages identified as particularly promising: three messages that emphasize different benefits from the vaccines (personal health, the health of others, and the recovery of local and national economies) and one message that emphasizes vaccine safety. Because people will likely be exposed to multiple messages in the real world, we also examined the effect of these messages in combination. Based on a nationally quota representative sample of 3,048 adults in the United States, our findings suggest that several forms of public messages can increase vaccine intentions, but messaging that emphasizes personal health benefits had the largest impact.

Widespread testing is key to controlling the spread of COVID-19. But should we worry about self-selection bias in the testing? The recent literature on willful ignorance says we should-people often avoid health information. In the context of COVID-19, such willful ignorance can bias testing data. Further, willful ignorance often arises when selfish wants conflict with social benefits, which might be particularly likely for potential "super spreaders"people with many social interactions-given people who test positive are urged to self-isolate for two weeks. We design a survey in which participants (N=897) choose whether to take a costless COVID-19 test. We find that 70 percent would take a test. Surprisingly, the people most likely to widely spread COVID-19-the extraverts, others who meet more people in their daily lives, and younger people-are the most willing to take a test. People's ability to financially or emotionally sustain self-isolation does not matter to their decision. We conclude that people are selfless in their decision to test for COVID-19. Our results are encouraging-they imply that COVOD-19 testing may succeed in targeting those who generate the largest social benefits from self-isolation if infected, which strengthens the case for widespread testing.