Document Type
Article
Publication Title
EcoHealth
Publication Date
4-2020
ISSN
1612-9202
Page Number
217
Keywords
pandemic, risk, Covid-19, environmental disaster
Disciplines
Disaster Law | Environmental Law | Law
Abstract
Will a major shock awaken the US citizens to the threat of catastrophic pandemic risk? Using a natural experiment administered both before and after the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak, our evidence suggests “no.” Our results show that prior to the Ebola scare, the US citizens were relatively complacent and placed a low relative priority on public spending to prepare for a pandemic disease outbreak relative to an environmental disaster risk (e.g., Fukushima) or a terrorist attack (e.g., 9/11). After the Ebola scare, the average citizen did not over-react to the risk. This flat reaction was unexpected given the well-known availability heuristic—people tend to over-weigh judgments of events more heavily toward more recent information. In contrast, the average citizen continued to value pandemic risk less relative to terrorism or environmental risk.
Recommended Citation
W. Kip Viscusi, Jamison Pike, Jason F. Shogren, David Aadland, David Finnoff, Alexandre Skiba, and Peter Daszak,
Catastrophic Risk: Waking Up to the Reality of a Pandemic?, 17 EcoHealth. 217
(2020)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1537