@article{Davis_2022, title={Managing Contagion: COVID-19, public health, and reflexive behavior}, volume={42}, url={https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org.br/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/2338}, DOI={10.1590/0101-31572022-3405}, abstractNote={<p>This paper characterizes a pandemic as a kind of contagion, and describes a<br>contagion as a two-level, two-direction, reflexive feedback loop system. In such a system,<br>expert opinions for managing a pandemic can act as self-fulfilling prophecies due to how<br>they influence collective belief formation. However, when multiple experts produce multiple<br>expert opinions that act as self-fulfilling prophecies, this can fragment a society’s response to<br>a pandemic, worsening rather than ameliorating it. This paper models this possible outcome<br>by distinguishing two competing expert opinions, appealing respectively to people in club<br>good and common pool types of employment/health insurance situations, and argues that to combat fragmentation of opinion about how to address a pandemic, public health policy<br>needs to attend to the nature of public reasoning. It argues this entails asking how just and<br>legitimate deliberative institutions can function in an ‘inclusive and noncoercive’ way that<br>allows society to reconcile competing visions regarding how to combat system-wide crises<br>such as pandemics.</p> <p><strong>JEL Classification:</strong> A13; H41; H70; I100.</p>}, number={3}, journal={Brazilian Journal of Political Economy}, author={Davis, John B.}, year={2022}, month={Aug.}, pages={555-571} }