IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cvh/coecwp/2023-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Distancing Policies on the Reproduction Number of COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Rácz, Olivér Miklós

Abstract

Distancing policies became the primary preventive intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper estimates the effect of such interventions on the effective reproduction number (Rt) of this virus on a daily panel of 109 countries. Distancing interventions affect COVID infections indirectly through the regulation of social behaviors, which are also a function of voluntary decisions. The main contribution of this paper is the separation of policy-compliant and voluntary distancing effects. I identify the policy-compliant component of distancing behavior as rapid changes in social activity immediately after an intervention. This allows me to isolate the voluntary component as residual changes in activity. I use the isolated voluntary component as a control in the main estimation of distancing policy effects on Rt. I distinguish between (i) place restrictions: restricting destinations and (ii) mobility restrictions: regulations on inland movements. I find strong and permanent effects for both types of restrictions. Place restrictions that target specific destinations are found to be less effective than general mobility restrictions. The effect of voluntary distancing is also significantly negative but weaker than that of policy restrictions. These results suggest that governments can use distancing restrictions effectively in pushing the effective reproduction number below the containment threshold: Rt = 1.

Suggested Citation

  • Rácz, Olivér Miklós, 2023. "The Effect of Distancing Policies on the Reproduction Number of COVID-19," Corvinus Economics Working Papers (CEWP) 2023/01, Corvinus University of Budapest.
    • Handle: RePEc:cvh:coecwp:2023/01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/7948/
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; non-pharmaceutical interventions; causal identification; reproduction number; regression-discontinuity-in-time;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • C54 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Quantitative Policy Modeling
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • H39 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Other
    • H84 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Disaster Aid
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cvh:coecwp:2023/01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Adam Hoffmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bkeeehu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.