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Evaluating the effectiveness of policies against a pandemic

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  • Alemán, Christian
  • Busch, Christopher
  • Ludwig, Alexander
  • Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül

Abstract

We develop a novel empirical approach to identify the effectiveness of policies against a pandemic. The essence of our approach is the insight that epidemic dynamics are best tracked over stages, rather than over time. We use a normalization procedure that makes the pre-policy paths of the epidemic identical across regions. The procedure uncovers regional variation in the stage of the epidemic at the time of policy implementation. This variation delivers clean identification of the policy effect based on the epidemic path of a leading region that serves as a counterfactual for other regions. We apply our method to evaluate the effectiveness of the nationwide stay-home policy enacted in Spain against the Covid-19 pandemic. We find that the policy saved 15.9% of lives relative to the number of deaths that would have occurred had it not been for the policy intervention. Its effectiveness evolves with the epidemic and is larger when implemented at earlier stages.

Suggested Citation

  • Alemán, Christian & Busch, Christopher & Ludwig, Alexander & Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül, 2020. "Evaluating the effectiveness of policies against a pandemic," SAFE Working Paper Series 294, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:safewp:294
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3714697
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    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health

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    Cited by:

    1. Houštecká, Anna & Koh, Dongya & Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül, 2021. "Contagion at work: Occupations, industries and human contact," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Callaway, Brantly & Li, Tong, 2023. "Policy evaluation during a pandemic," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 236(1).
    3. Cristina Lafuente and Astrid Ruland, 2022. "Short-Time Work schemes and labour market flows in Europe during COVID," Economics Working Papers EUI ECO 2022/02, European University Institute.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Macroeconomics; Pandemic; Stages; Covid-19; Stay-Home; Policy Effects; Identification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution

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