(with Jussi Keppo, Marianna Kudlyak, Elena Quercioli, Lones Smith, and Andrea Wilson)

The current rough version here, but presented on VirtualMacro on 4/10 (Youtube here).   Slides here. <——- (when it was called “The Swiss Cheese Game, “A Behavioral SI* Model, with Applications to the Swine Flu and COVID-19 Pandemics”)

We consider a random encounter game with standard additive preferences over expected contagion losses and vigilance, given a constant elasticity between vigilance and infection transmission reduction. Our theory shows that the Nash equilibrium modifies the linear SIR model to a just as tractable log-linear model. Geometric growth replaces exponential growth

Our theory makes sense of the lockdowns too

2. Strategically Rational Risk Taking by Age in COVID-19, and the Heterogeneous Agent Behavioral SIR Model

Fun fact: our behavioral SIR model makes sense of this wonderful youtube video of COVID data: www.youtube.com/watch?v=54XLXg4fYsc

This project is dedicated to Elena Quercioli (1967-2021), who conceived of contagion as a public goods application of our work on counterfeiting. Cancer stole her life far too young! Her motto was “I gotta change the world”. We hope this project helps realize her research imprint on the world.