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Imagining the Future: Memory, Simulation and Beliefs about Covid

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Bordalo
  • Giovanni Burro
  • Katherine B. Coffman
  • Nicola Gennaioli
  • Andrei Shleifer
Abstract
How do people form beliefs about novel risks, with which they have little or no experience? A 2020 US survey of beliefs about the lethality of Covid reveals that the elderly underestimate, and the young overestimate, their own risks, and that people with more health adversities are more pessimistic, even for others. A model in which people selectively recall frequent and similar past experiences, including from other domains, and use them to imagine (simulate) the novel risk, explains our findings. An experience increases perceived risk if it makes that risk easier to imagine, but decreases it by interfering with recall of experiences that fuel imagination. The model yields new predictions on how non-Covid experiences shape beliefs about Covid, for which we find empirical support. These findings cannot be explained by conventional experience effects, and highlight memory mechanisms shaping which experiences are recalled and how they are used to form beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Bordalo & Giovanni Burro & Katherine B. Coffman & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2022. "Imagining the Future: Memory, Simulation and Beliefs about Covid," NBER Working Papers 30353, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30353
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Prati, Alberto & Saucet, Charlotte, 2024. "The causal effect of a health treatment on beliefs, stated preferences and memories," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Conti, G.; & Giustinelli, P.;, 2022. "For Better or Worse? Subjective Expectations and Cost-Benefit Trade-Offs in Health Behavior: An Application to Lockdown Compliance in the United Kingdom," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/14, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Salle, Isabelle & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Coibion, Olivier, 2023. "Lifetime Memories of Inflation: Evidence from Surveys and the Lab," CEPR Discussion Papers 18684, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Gabriella Conti & Pamela Giustinelli, 2023. "For better or worse? Subjective expectations and cost-benefit trade-offs in health behavior," IFS Working Papers W23/19, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Pedro Bordalo & John Conlon & Nicola Gennaioli & Spencer Kwon & Andrei Shleifer, 2023. "How People Use Statistics," Working Papers 699, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

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