The Effect of Being Vaccinated and National Vaccination Rates on Individuals’ Cognitions, Emotions, and Economic Expectations: Evidence from Israel

Background: Israel was the first nation to establish a vaccination program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, its citizens could look to no other country to help them judge its influence. People’s predictions of their safety should depend on whether they were vaccinated, whereas their predictions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic should be based on the degree of progress of the vaccination program. We expected people to understand that the program would improve their safety by reducing the number of infected people around them. Method: An original panel survey was conducted covering the pandemic’s first year. Respondents reported their vaccination status, emotions, evaluations of their safety, and predictions about the spread of COVID-19 and the Israeli gross domestic product. Results: Estimates of fixed-effects models using the survey data suggest that being vaccinated affected people’s cognitions about their own safety and their emotions but not their expectations regarding the situation in Israel as a whole. In contrast, the vaccination rate in Israel affected only the respondents’ expectations about the spread of COVID-19, their own income, and Israel’s gross domestic product. Conclusions: Being vaccinated is important for people’s personal emotional and cognitive relief during a pandemic. A high vaccination rate improves people’s economic expectations, which is important to the recovery of economic activity.