The Herd Immunity Game

 

This week, we are adding a new free game to the site: the Herd Immunity Game, by Alan Grant, Jim Bruehler and Andreea Chiritescu (Journal of Economics Teaching 2016). You will find it in the section “externalities and public goods” on this page: http://economics-games.com/games .

 

Abstract:

“Outbreaks of dangerous, preventable diseases have drawn attention to individuals who fail to obtain available and effective vaccines. This classroom experiment demonstrates the basic cost-benefit tradeoff inherent in vaccination. As more students obtain a costly vaccine, the likelihood of a non-immunized student catching the disease declines; non-vaccinating students obtain herd immunity. In equilibrium, a substantial fraction of students fail to obtain the vaccine. In addition to highlighting a genuine public health issue, the experiment can also be used more generally to illustrate the nature of externalities and the public goods problem.”

 

The paper is available on the site of the (open) journal: http://downloads.journalofeconomicsteaching.org/1/1/1-2.pdf

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Next thursday, we will add “The Bubble Game”, by Sophie Moinas and Sébastien Pouget (Southern Economic Journal 2016, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/soej.12119/abstract), a classroom experiment about speculative bubbles.

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