D. Cale Reeves, a visiting assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, co-authored a paper that was recently published in PLoS One. The paper is titled “Policy and behavioral response to shock events: An agent-based model of the effectiveness and equity of policy design features.”

In it, Reeves and his co-authors discuss how shock events influence policy decisions, especially in regard to their timeliness. They use Covid-19 as an example and find that while policy responses are more effective when implemented earlier on, factors such as duration, trust, and compliance can severely impact their effectiveness. Furthermore, they see that even more effective policies can disproportionately affect already vulnerable populations.

The full article can be read at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262172.