Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, July 2022, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF (local copy). We investigate how politico-economic factors shaped government responses to the spread of COVID-19. Our simple framework uses epidemiological, economic and politico-economic arguments. Confronting the theory with US state level data we find strong evidence for partisanship even when we control for fundamentals including the electorate’s political views. Moreover, we detect an important role for the proximity of elections which we interpret as indicative of career concerns. Finally, we find suggestive evidence for complementarities between voluntary activity reductions and government imposed restrictions.
Topics:
Dirk Niepelt considers the following as important: Career concern, Contributions, COVID-19, Election, Lockdown, Logistic model, Partisanship, Political economy, Research, SIR model
This could be interesting, too:
Dirk Niepelt writes The New Keynesian Model and Reality
Dirk Niepelt writes “Money and Banking with Reserves and CBDC,” JF, 2024
Dirk Niepelt writes “Augenwischerei um SNB-Ausschüttungen (Misconceptions about SNB Distributions),” NZZ, 2024
Dirk Niepelt writes Bank of England CBDC Academic Advisory Group
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, July 2022, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF (local copy).
We investigate how politico-economic factors shaped government responses to the spread of COVID-19. Our simple framework uses epidemiological, economic and politico-economic arguments. Confronting the theory with US state level data we find strong evidence for partisanship even when we control for fundamentals including the electorate’s political views. Moreover, we detect an important role for the proximity of elections which we interpret as indicative of career concerns. Finally, we find suggestive evidence for complementarities between voluntary activity reductions and government imposed restrictions.