TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Giulietti, Corrado
AU  - Vlassopoulos, Michael
AU  - Zenou, Yves
        TI  - When Reality Bites: Local Deaths and Vaccine Take-up
        PY  - 2022/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15462
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15462
        AB  - We investigate whether COVID-19 deaths that occurred before vaccination rollouts impact subsequent vaccination take-up. We use data on local vaccination rates and COVID-19-related deaths from England measured at high geographic granularity. We find that vaccination take-up as of November 2021 is positively associated with pre-vaccine COVID-19-related deaths, controlling for demographic, economic, and health-related characteristics of the localities, while including geographic fixed effects. In addition, the share of ethnic minorities in a locality is negatively associated with vaccination rates, and localities with a larger share of ethnic minorities increase their vaccination rates if they are exposed to more COVID-related-deaths. Further evidence on vaccination intention at the individual level from a representative sample corroborates these patterns. Overall, our evidence suggests that social proximity to victims of the disease triggers a desire to take protective measures against it.
        KW  - vaccination hesitancy
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - social interactions
KW  - information
KW  - behavior change
        ER  -