Veblen and Conspicuous Consumption Revisited: The Beneficial Role of "Invisible" Masks During a Pandemic

Suppose that masks are invisible,  would more people wear them?  Would more supporters of President Trump wear them?  How much of the opposition to playing it safe and putting on a mask is due to the economics of identity?    To repeat my question, if you could put on a mask but everyone else wouldn’t know that you were wearing one, would this increase your probability of putting it on?

Let’s review the economics of risk taking.

Case #1:  Decision makers who do not have social preferences.

In the 1970s, my friend Glenn Blomquist wrote a nice paper on the economics of putting on a seatbelt.  In his 1979 JPE paper,  Glenn studies a tradeoff. When one puts on a seatbelt before driving, this takes you time and effort (a cost) and it offers you a benefit (a lower probability of suffering in an accident).   Glenn collects some data and uses statistical methods to infer how much people are willing to pay for a small reduction in risk.  If we could estimate this willingness to pay for risk reduction for each person, we could identify the subset of people who do not value putting on a seat belt. This group’s behavior would be affected by a government seatbelt mandate and enforcement of this law. This group would be likely to complain about this benevolent paternalism of the state.

I raise this case because mask wearing can be thought of as similar to a seat belt mandate.  Yes,  I understand that putting on a mask protects both the person and those people who the person comes into close physical contact with.

Case #2   The Decision Maker has social preferences

What do I mean by “social preferences”? In the Akerlof and Kranton framework on the economics of identity, this person gains utility from “fitting in” with her peers.  In my  past work, I have argued that a person who lives in Berkeley gains direct utility from driving a Prius or Tesla because this is a green car and she gains additional utility by signaling that she is a good environmentalist. We drive in public and what we drive signals our “type”.  This latter effect is what I mean by social preferences.  You can also read my 2001 Boston Globe editorial.

So, in my old green products work — I argued that social preferences accelerates the diffusion of green products such as solar panels and clean cars.   I’m worried that the same logic explains the distinctive refusal of many to wear masks at this key time.  Invisible masks would solve this issue.

In the case of masks and the Pandemic, are social preferences to fit in with one’s group slowing down our progress in fighting the contagion? If the masks were invisible, we could unbundle fighting the virus from fitting in with one’s libertarian brothers.   How many of this group would exercise this option? How much would R0 decline by?

To keep this blog post simple, I have introduced population variation in risk aversion of beliefs about the effectiveness of masks, or discomfort in wearing a mask.  What we wear in public sends signals about who we are. Veblen was thinking about such conspicuous consumption a long time ago.

If an “invisible mask” exists and if there is no government mandate to wear a mask, this product would be purchased by people who fear the disease and have social preferences such that they want to fit in with President Trump’s supporters.  Whether this is a big group or not, the existence of this set of people means that they will wear the mask if the product exists and they won’t wear the mask if the product does not exist.  The size of this group determines how much the aggregate contagion parameter shrinks by when the product is introduced.