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Work ethics, stay-at-home measures and COVID-19 diffusion

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  • Vincenzo Alfano

    (Westminster International University in Tashkent
    Center for Economic Studies—CESifo)

Abstract

Non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19 rely largely on voluntary compliance among the target population to be effective, since such measures, which are aimed at the entire population, are very hard to enforce. In this paper, we focus on the impact of different work ethics on the spread of COVID-19. There are indeed reasons to believe that populations with different attitudes toward work will react differently to stay-at-home orders and other policies that forbid people from working. By means of a quantitative analysis, using hybrid model estimators, we test the impact of different work ethics on COVID-19 diffusion in a sample of 30 European countries. Results show that the more a population holds certain beliefs about work—namely, that it is humiliating to receive money without working, that people who do not work become lazy, and that work always comes first—the higher contagion rates of COVID-19 are, ceteris paribus. On the other hand, the more a population perceives work as a social duty, the lower contagion rates are. All this suggests that different work ethics matter in the containment of COVID-19.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincenzo Alfano, 2022. "Work ethics, stay-at-home measures and COVID-19 diffusion," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(5), pages 893-901, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eujhec:v:23:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1007_s10198-021-01402-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10198-021-01402-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bargain, Olivier & Aminjonov, Ulugbek, 2020. "Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
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    3. Reinhard Schunck, 2013. "Within and between estimates in random-effects models: Advantages and drawbacks of correlated random effects and hybrid models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 13(1), pages 65-76, March.
    4. Liang Tian & Xuefei Li & Fei Qi & Qian-Yuan Tang & Viola Tang & Jiang Liu & Zhiyuan Li & Xingye Cheng & Xuanxuan Li & Yingchen Shi & Haiguang Liu & Lei-Han Tang, 2021. "Harnessing peak transmission around symptom onset for non-pharmaceutical intervention and containment of the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Vincenzo Alfano & Salvatore Ercolano, 2020. "The Efficacy of Lockdown Against COVID-19: A Cross-Country Panel Analysis," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 509-517, August.
    6. Alfano, Vincenzo & Ercolano, Salvatore & Cicatiello, Lorenzo, 2021. "School openings and the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. A provincial-level analysis using the synthetic control method," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(9), pages 1200-1207.
    7. Ashraf, Badar Nadeem, 2020. "Economic impact of government interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: International evidence from financial markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
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    Cited by:

    1. Hongzhou Yuan & Ming Su & Justyna Zywiolek & Joanna Rosak-Szyrocka & Asad Javed & Zahid Yousaf, 2023. "Towards Innovation Performance of the Hospitality and Tourism Industry: Interplay among Business Ethics Diffusion, Service Innovation, and Knowledge-Sharing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, January.
    2. Vincenzo Alfano & Salvatore Ercolano, 2023. "Measuring Tight and Loose Cultures across NUTS-2 Regions: The Regional Index of Looseness," CESifo Working Paper Series 10731, CESifo.
    3. Alfano, Vincenzo, 2024. "Unlocking the importance of perceived governance: The impact on COVID-19 in NUTS-2 European regions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).
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    5. Alfano, Vincenzo, 2023. "God or good health? Evidence on belief in God in relation to public health during a pandemic," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Alfano, Vincenzo & Ercolano, Salvatore & Pinto, Mauro, 2022. "Carrot and stick: Economic support and stringency policies in response to COVID-19," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Work ethics; Non-pharmaceutical intervention; Hybrid model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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