How does exposure to COVID-19 influence health and income inequality aversion?
研究英国、德国和意大利三国个体对健康与收入不平等厌恶的影响因素，特别是COVID-19冲击的作用，发现2020年英国的不平等厌恶显著高于2016年，且收入领域高于健康领域。
We study individual aversion to health and income inequality in three European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy), its determinants and especially, the effects of exposure to three types of COVID-19 specific shocks affecting individuals' employment status, their income and health. Next, using evidence of representative samples of the population in the UK, we compare levels of health- and income-inequality aversion in the UK between the years 2016 and 2020. We document evidence of a significant increase in inequality aversion in both income and health domains. However, we show that inequality aversion is higher in the income domain than in the health domain. Furthermore, we find that inequality aversion in both domains increases in age and education and decreases in income and risk appetite. However, people directly exposed to major health shocks during the COVID-19 pandemic generally exhibited lower levels of aversion to both income and health inequality. Finally, we show that inequality aversion was significantly higher among those exposed to higher risk of COVID-19 mortality who experienced major health shocks during the pandemic. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00355-023-01460-8.