Series: Working Papers. 2123.
Author: Alejandro Buesa, Javier J. Pérez y Daniel Santabárbara.
Published in:
Full document
Abstract
“Awareness” about the occurrence of viral infectious (or other) tail risks can influence their socioeconomic inter-temporal impacts. A branch of the literature finds that prior lifetime exposure to signicant shocks can affect people and societies, i.e. by changing their perceived probability about the occurrence of an extreme, negative shock in the future. In this paper we proxy “awareness” by historical exposure of a country to epidemics, and other catastrophic events. We show that in a large cross-section of more tan 150 countries, more “aware” societies suffered a less intense impact of the COVID-19 disease, in terms of loss of lives and, to some extent, economic damage.