Risk aversion and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

We here investigate the role of risk aversion in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The theoretical effect is ambiguous, as both COVID-19 infection and vaccination side-effects involve probabilistic elements. In large-scale data covering five European countries, we find that vaccine hesitancy falls with risk aversion, so that COVID-19 infection is perceived as involving greater risk than is vaccination.

A machine learning approach to predict self-protecting behaviors during the early wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using a unique harmonized real-time data set from the COME-HERE longitudinal survey that covers five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden) and applying a non-parametric machine learning model, this paper identifies the main individual and macro-level predictors of self-protecting behaviors against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the first wave of the pandemic. Exploiting the interpretability of a Random Forest algorithm via Shapely values, we find that a higher regional incidence of COVID-19 triggers higher levels of self-protective behavior, as does a stricter government policy response. The level of individual knowledge about the pandemic, confidence in institutions, and population density also ranks high among the factors that predict self-protecting behaviors.

Characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Understanding what lies behind actual COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamental to help policy makers increase vaccination rates and reach herd immunity. We use June 2021 data from the COME-HERE survey to explore the predictors of actual vaccine hesitancy in France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden. We estimate a linear-probability model with a rich set of covariates and address issues of common-method variance.

The socioeconomic gradient in child health and noncognitive skills: Evidence from the Czech Republic.

We investigate the presence of a socioeconomic status (SES) gradient in children's health and noncognitive skill development, and its evolution with child age using cohort data from the Czech Republic. We show that family SES are positively associated with better child health. These effects start to emerge at age 3 and are persistent for all subsequent ages.