In: Economics
Suppose a pandemic virus strikes and public health experts recommend everyone voluntarily stays at home until the spread of the virus subsides. For this analysis, assume the players are You and Everyone Else and each of you has the choice between staying at home or going out. If everyone goes out (regardless of what you do), then the pandemic will last longer and everyone receives a payoff of -3. Going out is worth a payoff of 2 (e.g if everyone goes out, then the payoff would be -3+2=-1 for every person that went out).
a. Draw a normal form representation of this game.
b. Do you have a dominant strategy?
c. What is the Nash equilibrium?
d. What does this suggest about public policy and voluntary stay-at-home orders?