COVID-19 Vaccine Development in a Quadruple Helix Innovation System: Uncovering the Preferences of the Fourth Helix in the UAE

Abstract

Successful development and uptake of vaccine technology in a Quadruple Helix Innovative health or economic system requires a clear understanding of society’s preferences as the fourth helix. With significant financial commitments to find a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine still ongoing, this study introduces a random utility theoretic behavioral health model to analyze individuals’ prospective demand for the vaccine in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To this end, we use a cross-sectional sample of stated vaccine preferences data collected online using the snowball method, between 4 July and 4 August 2020, gathering 1109 responses across all seven Emirates of the UAE. We found that in addition to socio-economic and demographic influences, the factors affecting individuals’ preferences for the prospective COVID-19 vaccine in the UAE include those put forth by the WHO’s SAGE group on immunization. Though the estimated indirect cost, in the form of expected marginal utility of time spent to get the vaccine is not statistically significant, the expected marginal utility of every dirham spent to get the vaccine is −1.76 AED and significant, suggesting a significant expected dis-utility from COVID-19 vaccine seeking/payment by the average person. Our findings also highlight significant perceived financial, temporal and spatial barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the UAE. Therefore, a set of measures are suggested to help mitigate the adverse effects of these three constraints. Our study thus contributes methodologically to the literature on vaccine demand, hesitancy and development. It also contributes to the nascent empirical evidence on the novel coronavirus disease, by providing significant insights for evidence based policy making that should increase the effectiveness of any prospective COVID-19 vaccination program in the UAE.

Sharing Economy and Government

“…Our findings may indicate that governments can also play an important role in the process by influencing either the culture or engineering of innovation [70]. This argument is also consistent with prior research in the quadruple helix model, which recognizes the roles of four major actors (i.e., science, industry, society, and policy) in the innovation system [71,72]. Recent literature in the quadruple helix model shows that governments play a critical role in involving the public in innovation processes [73].…”

Empirical Analysis of the Global Supply and Demand of Entrepreneurial Finance: A Random Utility Theory Perspective

“…Jointly estimating these three equations allows for their error terms to correlate in an endogeneity switching regression framework [38], thereby statistically controlling for the formerly described endogeneity of financial intermediation. As previously implemented in [39], this framework is appropriate for discrete choice modelling in the presence of an endogenous binary regressor, as is the case here. The special case of exogenous financial intermediation is obtained by assuming account access to be outside of the economic agent's control, and therefore treated as an exogenous explanatory factor in the two processes of saving and borrowing for entrepreneurial ventures.…”

Africa's preparedness towards COVID-19 vaccines: Demand and acceptability challenges

“…To date, empirical studies on public attitudes toward potential COVID-19 vaccines in Africa remain relatively sparse. However, research from elsewhere suggest that individuals’ decision-making towards vaccination are complex and multi-faceted ( Niankara et al, 2020 , Salmon et al, 2015 ). It has been proven that individuals’ attitudes toward vaccines range on a continuum, that is, from an end of complete vaccine rejection, to the other end of complete vaccine acceptance ( Lane et al, 2018 , Piltch-Loeb and DiClemente, 2020 ).…”

“…Based on these two ends along the continuum, there are differing magnitudes of vaccine hesitancy ( Carrieri et al, 2019 , Larson et al, 2014 ). Therefore, understanding well-packaged information on vaccines’ developmental sequence ahead of schedule: pre-clinical testing, phased clinical trials, planned production, distribution and the uptake chain would be considered as crucial towards successful implementation at the national level against the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa ( Koirala et al, 2020 , Niankara et al, 2020 ). Empirical studies on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy in Africa are also required.…”