If you’re like me, you can’t stop reading about the Coronavirus… With schools closing, professional sports seasons being cancelled, and the worry of how this pandemic will affect our health and the health of our loved ones, there’s obviously a lot to take in.

And you'll probably not be surprised to know that there are a lot of behavioral economic considerations with Covid 19. To explore these ramifications, I’m bringing Dr. Derek Reed back on the show for a deep dive on this topic.

We plan on discussing the following:

• The social discounting and probability discounting involved in following public health guidelines (or not following them). Derek has already done some similar work in the area of heeding tornado warnings (or not).
• Measuring the demand for essential goods (hand sanitizer, toilet paper) and non-essential goods (hand lotion, trash bags) in preparation for a pandemic.
• How behavior analysis is ill-equipped to quickly move on these kinds of crises. Behavior analytic methods rely on steady-state baselines and longitudinal data. It’s hard to do that when there’s a global crisis and immediate intervention is necessary. So what do we do?

To say that I can’t wait for this conversation is an understatement. For a bit of background on both Derek and Behavioral Economics, I suggest you check out his first appearance on the podcast waaay back in Session 17 (which, quite incidentally, is available for a CEU).

If you have questions on this topic for Derek, I’d love to hear them. Simply hit reply and let me know what’s on your mind.

All the best,

Matt