Zu Chongzhi Center Colloquium
Date and Time (China standard time): Friday, May 12, 4:00-5:00 pm
Location: IB 1010
Zoom: 986 5219 7370; Passcode: dkumath
Title: Strategic Vaccination
Speaker: Wanyi Chen
Bio: Dr. Wanyi Chen is an assistant professor of economics at Xiamen University. Her research field is game theory and informational economics. She got a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a bachelor’s degree in both economics and applied mathematics at Wuhan University.
Abstract: We study the optimal scheduling of mass vaccination and a game of vaccination. Vaccination protects the vaccinated, and indirectly the unvaccinated against infection, but may cause adverse side effects. The safety of vaccination can be learned through monitoring the vaccinated population over time. We derive the socially optimal dynamic vaccination schedule that trades off the short-term benefit of vaccination and its information value. We also study the strategic experimentation game in which players independently choose when to get vaccinated. Because of the payoff externality of vaccination and the informational free-riding, society under-vaccinates. We provide simple policies that drive the equilibrium toward the social optimum.
