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RATIONAL DISINHIBITION AND EXTERNALITIES IN PREVENTION
Author(s) -
Toxvaerd Flavio
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.658
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1468-2354
pISSN - 0020-6598
DOI - 10.1111/iere.12402
Subject(s) - disinhibition , serodiscordant , social planner , welfare , externality , planner , disease , disease control , social welfare , economics , transmission (telecommunications) , medicine , psychology , environmental health , microeconomics , immunology , psychiatry , computer science , market economy , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , viral load , antiretroviral therapy , programming language , law , political science , telecommunications
This article studies a model of disease propagation in which rational and forward‐looking individuals can control their exposure to infection by engaging in costly preventive behavior. Equilibrium outcomes under decentralized decision making are characterized and contrasted to the outcomes chosen by a social planner. In general, individuals overexpose themselves to infection, leading to suboptimally high disease prevalence. The model is applied to study the welfare effects of preexposure prophylaxis, which reduces transmission between serodiscordant couples and causes disinhibition. It is shown that a decrease in the induced infection risks increases disease prevalence and can lead to decreases in overall welfare.