Vaccine politics

2025

1. Vaccine politics

   Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Ferdinand Geissler, and 2 more authors

   2025

   The Corona shock opened a series of questions about how societies pull together to face common challenges. We tracked the evolution of public opinion in Germany to understand positions on liberty-welfare tradeoffs and national and global solidarity.

2023

1. PA

   Trading Liberties: Estimating COVID-19 Policy Preferences from Conjoint Data

   Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Ferdinand Geissler, and 2 more authors

   Political Analysis, 2023

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   Survey experiments are an important tool to measure policy preferences. Researchers often rely on the random assignment of policy attribute levels to estimate different types of average marginal effects. Yet, researchers are often interested in how respondents trade-off different policy dimensions. We use a conjoint experiment administered to more than 10,000 respondents in Germany, to study preferences over personal freedoms and public welfare during the COVID-19 crisis. Using a pre-registered structural model, we estimate policy ideal points and indifference curves to assess the conditions under which citizens are willing to sacrifice freedoms in the interest of public well-being. We document broad willingness to accept restrictions on rights alongside sharp heterogeneity with respect to vaccination status. The majority of citizens are vaccinated and strongly support limitations on freedoms in response to extreme conditions–especially, when they vaccinated themselves are exempted from these limitations. The unvaccinated minority prefers no restrictions on freedoms regardless of the severity of the pandemic. These policy packages also matter for reported trust in government, in opposite ways for vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens.

   @article{vaccines_pa_2023,
     author = {Hartmann, Felix and Humphreys, Macartan and Geissler, Ferdinand and Kl{\"u}ver, Heike and Giesecke, Johannes},
     title = {Trading Liberties: Estimating COVID-19 Policy Preferences from Conjoint Data},
     journal = {Political Analysis},
     year = {2023},
     number = {2=Nr. 32},
     pages = {285-293},
     pap = {https://osf.io/4vgf6/},
     status = {peer},
     proj = {vaccines},
     keywords = {health, experimental, methods},
     proj.1 = {vaccines}
   }

2022

1. PLOS

   Public support for global vaccine sharing in the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Germany

   Ferdinand Geissler, Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, and 1 more author

   PLOS ONE, 2022

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   By September 2021 an estimated 32% of the global population was fully vaccinated for COVID-19 but the global distribution of vaccines was extremely unequal, with 72% or more vaccinated in the ten countries with the highest vaccination rates and less than 2% in the ten countries with the lowest vaccination rates. Given that governments need to secure public support for investments in global vaccine sharing, it is important to understand the levels and drivers of public support for international vaccine solidarity. Using a factorial experiment administered to more than 10,000 online survey respondents in Germany in 2021, we demonstrate that the majority of German citizens are against global inequalities in vaccine distribution. Respondents are supportive of substantive funding amounts, on the order of the most generous contributions provided to date, though still below amounts that are likely needed for a successful global campaign. Public preferences appear largely to be driven by intrinsic concern for the welfare of global populations though are in part explained by material considerations—particularly risks of continued health threats from a failure to vaccinate globally. Strategic considerations are of more limited importance in shaping public opinion; in particular we see no evidence for free riding on contributions by other states. Finally, drawing on an additional survey experiment, we show that there is scope to use information campaigns highlighting international health externalities to augment public support for global campaigns.

   @article{vaccines_plos_2022,
     author = {Geissler, Ferdinand and Hartmann, Felix and Humphreys, Macartan and Giesecke, Heike Kl{\"u}verand Johannes},
     title = {Public support for global vaccine sharing in the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Germany},
     journal = {PLOS ONE},
     year = {2022},
     number = {12},
     pages = {e0278337},
     volume = {17},
     publisher = {Public Library of Science},
     pap = {https://osf.io/4vgf6/},
     status = {peer},
     proj = {vaccines},
     keywords = {development, health, experimental},
     proj.1 = {vaccines}
   }

2021

1. PNAS

   Incentives can spur COVID-19 vaccination uptake

   Heike Klüverand Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Ferdinand Geissler, and 1 more author

   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021

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   Recent evidence suggests that vaccination hesitancy is too high in many countries to sustainably contain COVID-19. Using a factorial survey experiment administered to 20,500 online respondents in Germany, we assess the effectiveness of three strategies to increase vaccine uptake, namely, providing freedoms, financial remuneration, and vaccination at local doctors. Our results suggest that all three strategies can increase vaccination uptake on the order of two to three percentage points (PP) overall and five PP among the undecided. The combined effects could be as high as 13 PP for this group. The returns from different strategies vary across age groups, however, with older cohorts more responsive to local access and younger cohorts most responsive to enhanced freedoms for vaccinated citizens.

   @article{vaccines_pnas_2021,
     author = {Hartmann, Heike Kl{\"u}verand Felix and Humphreys, Macartan and Geissler, Ferdinand and Giesecke, Johannes},
     title = {Incentives can spur COVID-19 vaccination uptake},
     journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
     year = {2021},
     number = {36},
     pages = {e2109543118},
     volume = {118},
     publisher = {National Acad Sciences},
     pap = {https://osf.io/h8rkb/},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109543118},
     replication = {https://wzb-ipi.github.io/covid_hesitancy_2021/},
     status = {peer},
     proj = {vaccines},
     keywords = {experimental, health},
     proj.1 = {vaccines}
   }