Purcell, Helene

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  • Publication
    The Heterogeneous Impacts of Natural Disasters on Risk Preferences in Indonesia
    (2021-08-01) Purcell, Helene
    Many economic decisions are influenced by individual risk preferences, and new evidence challenges the immutability of these preferences. This paper explores the impact of disasters on individual risk attitudes using longitudinal data from Indonesia, focusing on the heterogeneity of disasters by type, severity and timing. I find risk aversion increases for a decade following disasters, and high-mortality disasters, namely earthquakes, are more salient to individuals than higher frequency, lower-mortality disasters. These outcomes shed light on how survivors in a developing country respond to and internalize disaster shocks and are informative to policymakers in addressing the increasing threat of disasters.
  • Publication
    Correcting Pessimistic Mortality Beliefs May Reduce Vaccine Hesitancy, Malawi Study Shows
    (2024-09-11) Purcell, Helene; Ciancio, Alberto; Mwera, James; Delavande, Adeline; Mwapasa, Victor; Kohler, Hans-Peter
    Helping people accurately understand their risk of dying or surviving may support public health campaigns years later. A new strategy for improving health behavior is supported by a randomized controlled trial from the longrunning Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH) that showed that a 2017 intervention to correct misconceptions about mortality risk was linked to higher COVID-19 vaccination rates five years later. Vaccination was 7.8 percentage points higher in the intervention than the control group. Effects spread to families of intervention participants, whose siblings had higher vaccination rates than the control group.