Introduction
Henrike’s research study aims to investigate how individuals’ attitudes towards international (re-)distribution differ with their degree of inequality aversion. This question is examined in the heretofore unexamined context of the global distribution of vaccine doses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research has found citizens’ other-regarding preferences and particularly their degree of inequality aversion to be positively correlated with their support for different types of within-country redistributive policies. Few studies have examined this in the context of an international distribution problem and none in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the object of distribution being scarce vaccine doses during a global health crisis.

Methods
The authors conducted an online survey with 2,400 German respondents in April 2021, a time during which COVID-19 vaccines were scarce and incidence levels high. The survey included incentivized modified dictator and ultimatum games to elicit Fehr & Schmidt (1999) parameters of advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion. Respondents’ attitudes towards the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines were measured through a discrete choice experiment, in which respondents had to select one out of two hypothetical candidates to receive the vaccine who varied in terms of (i) Age, (ii) Risk of COVID-19 death, (iii) Employment status, and (iv) Country of residence.

Results
The analysis revealed that respondents’ inequality aversion matters significantly for their global COVID-19 vaccine distribution preferences. While advantageous inequality aversion (guilt parameter) significantly increased German citizens’ support for distributing vaccines to low income countries, disadvantageous inequality aversion (envy parameter) reduced it. The results were robust to controlling for various behavioral, political and socioeconomic alternative drivers.

Conclusion
These findings improve our understanding of (the drivers behind) citizens’ international distribution preferences during a global health crisis and provide valuable information to policy makers who may be more inclined to discard vaccine nationalism if there is public support for donating vaccine doses.

Henrike Sternbergs presentation was part of the session "Stated preferences and discrete choice experiments to improve health service delivery in low- and middle-income countries" chaired by Dr. Kavita Singh from the research unit Health Economics and Health Financing Unit of the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health. If you want to learn more about the session or the conference in general, you can visit the sessions website of the conference site.