Wealth exchange and decision-making psychology in epidemic dynamics.

A binary wealth exchange mechanism, which involves the influence of the epidemic environment and agents' psychology on trading decisions, is introduced to discuss the wealth distribution of agents under the background of an epidemic. We find that the trading psychology of agents may affect wealth distribution and make the tail of the steady-state wealth distribution slimmer. The steady-state wealth distribution displays a bimodal shape under appropriate parameters. Our results suggest that government control measures are essential to curb the spread of epidemics, and vaccination may help to improve the economy, while contact control measures may aggravate wealth inequality.