In many countries, the current vaccination rates are stagnating, to the extent that vaccine hesitancy-the delay or refusal to take recommended vaccinations-forms a major obstacle to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. This tendency is particularly concerning when observed among healthcare workers who are opinion leaders on medical matters for their patients and peers. Our study surveys 965 employees of two large Swiss hospitals and profiles vaccine-hesitant hospital employees using not only socio-demographic characteristics, but also a comprehensive set of standard behavioral preference measures: (i) Big-5 personality traits, (ii) risk-, time- and social preferences, and (iii) perceived prevailing social norms. Using multinomial probit models and linear probability models, we find that vaccine-hesitant hospital employees are less patient and less likely to perceive vaccination as the prevailing social norm-in addition to replicating previously published socio-demographic results. Our findings are robust to a range of model specifications, as well as individual and situational covariates. Our study thus offers actionable policy implications for tailoring public-health communications to vaccine-hesitant hospital employees.

We study caste-based discrimination and belief updating of employers, using a lab experiment in India. We vary the access to education of potential employees and test if the information about the education opportunity changes the extent of discrimination and belief updating. Overall, we do not find significant evidence for discrimination, irrespective of the information provided, although the non-upper caste employers discriminate in favour of their own group in the initial rounds. Over time, both the upper caste and non-upper caste employers update their beliefs about the true ability distribution and statistically discriminate in favour of upper caste employees.

Human behavior can have effects on oneself and externalities on others. Mask wearing is such a behavior in the current pandemic. What motivates people to wear face masks in public when mask wearing is voluntary or not enforced? Which benefits should the policy makers rather emphasize in information campaigns-the reduced chances of getting the SARS-CoV-2 virus (benefits for oneself) or the reduced chances of transmitting the virus (benefits for others in the society)? In this paper, we link measured risk preferences and other-regarding preferences to mask wearing habits among 840 surveyed employees of two large Swiss hospitals. We find that the leading mask-wearing motivations change with age: While for older people, mask wearing habits are best explained by their self-regarding risk preferences, younger people are also motivated by other-regarding concerns. Our results are robust to different specifications including linear probability models, probit models and Lasso covariate selection models. Our findings thus allow drawing policy implications for effectively communicating public-health recommendations to frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper explores the link between migration and industrial diversification. Economic theories of migration typically focus on wage differential across sectors as the primary explanatory variable. In this paper instead we focus on the behavioral aspects of the agents, which may lead to different levels of migration resulting in different degrees of specialization and industrial congregation. We analyze the related issue of industrial diversification in a two sector set up with one traditional sector which is technologically saturated and an upcoming sector where there is a lot of scope for technological improvements. It is the entrepreneurial nature of the agents, rather than the wage difference, that drives the migration which in-turn helps in technological advancement of the upcoming sector. In this context we compare the equilibrium level of migration and the socially optimal level of migration. The level of migration, and hence, industrial specialization or diversification, are decided not only by the behavioral aspects but also the expectations. Expectations and the optimizing behavior of the agents are crucial in deciding the final level and the speed with which economies reach the steady state.