Are the Effects of Adoption and Termination of Shelter-in-Place Orders Symmetric? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Dave, Dhaval; Friedson, Andrew I.; Matsuzawa, Kyutaro; McNichols, Drew; Sabia, Joseph J.

doi:10.3386/w27322

Cited by 25 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…( Allday, 2020 , Dave et al, 2020b , Dave et al, 2020c , Dave et al, 2020d , Dave et al, 2020e , Defense Casualty Analysis System 2008 , Holshue et al, 2020 , Johns Hopkins University 2020 , Pan et al, 2020 , Rothe et al, 2020 , Sun and Abraham, 2020 , U.S. Census Bureau 2019b , Bai et al, 2020 , Wilson et al, 2020 , Centers for Disease Control 2020 ), Mervosh et al…”

Section: Uncited Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

JUE Insight: Were urban cowboys enough to control COVID-19? Local shelter-in-place orders and coronavirus case growth

Dave

Friedson

Matsuzawa

et al. 2022

Journal of Urban Economics

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One of the most common policy prescriptions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 has been to legally enforce social distancing through shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). This study examines the role of localized urban SIPO policy in curbing COVID-19 cases. Specifically, we explore (i) the comparative effectiveness of county-level SIPOs in urbanized as compared to non-urbanized areas, (ii) the mechanisms through which SIPO adoption in urban counties yields COVID-related health benefits, and (iii) whether late adoption of a statewide SIPO yields health benefits beyond those achieved from early adopting counties. We exploit the unique laboratory of Texas, a state in which the early adoption of local SIPOs by densely populated counties covered almost two-thirds of the state's population prior to adoption of a statewide SIPO on April 2, 2020. Using an event study framework, we document that countywide SIPO adoption is associated with an 8 percent increase in the percent of residents who remain at home full-time and between a 13 to 19 percent decrease in foot-traffic at venues that may contribute to the spread of COVID-19 such as restaurants, bars, hotels, and entertainment venues. These social distancing effects are largest in urbanized and densely populated counties. Then, we find that in early adopting urban counties, COVID-19 case growth fell by 21 to 26 percentage points two-and-a-half weeks following adoption of a SIPO, a result robust to controls for county-level heterogeneity in COVID-19 outbreak timing, coronavirus testing, the age distribution, and political preferences. We find that approximately 90 percent of the curbed growth in COVID-19 cases in Texas came from the early adoption of SIPOs by urbanized counties, suggesting that the later statewide shelter-in-place mandate yielded relatively few health benefits.

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Section: Uncited Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

JUE Insight: Were urban cowboys enough to control COVID-19? Local shelter-in-place orders and coronavirus case growth

Dave

Friedson

Matsuzawa

et al. 2022

Journal of Urban Economics

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“…In comparison, voluntary travel reductions, even in the absence of strong governmental intervention, suffices to reduce the spread of COVID-19 while potentially limiting economic effects. Dave et al (2020a) exploit a natural experiment in Wisconsin where the State Supreme Court lifted a state-wide shelter-in-place order and find no evidence that the repeal of the lockdown impacted social distancing or COVID-19 cases. While our paper does not compare governmental interventions directly, we first show that there are behavioral responses in the absence of strict policies and that it is highly dependent on the nature of information shared.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Does Precise Case Information Limit Precautionary Behavior? Evidence from COVID-19 in Singapore

Janssen

2020

SSRN Journal

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Limiting the spread of contagious diseases can involve both government-managed and voluntary efforts. Governments have a number of policy options beyond direct intervention that can shape individuals' responses to a pandemic and its associated costs. During its first wave of COVID-19 cases, Singapore was among a few countries that attempted to adjust behavior through the public provision of detailed case information. Singapore's Ministry of Health maintained and shared precise, daily information detailing local travel behavior and residences of COVID-19 cases. We use this transparency policy along with device-level cellphone data to quantify how local and national COVID-19 case announcements trigger differential behavioral changes. We find evidence that individuals are three times more responsive to outbreaks in granularly defined locales. Conditional on keeping infection rates at a manageable level, the results suggest economic value in this type of transparency by mitigating precautionary activity reductions.

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“…Our strategy is very similar to other economics papers which examine associations between the virus and various social factors (e.g. Allcott, Boxell, Conway, Gentzkow, Thaler, and Yang, 2020;Bursztyn, Rao, Roth, and Yanagizawa-Drott, 2020;Courtemanche, Garuccio, Le, Pinkston, and Yelowitz, 2020a,b;Dave, Friedson, Matsuzawa, McNichols, and Sabia, 2020;Mangrum and Niekamp, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship between In-Person Voting and COVID-19: Evidence from the Wisconsin Primary

Cotti¹,

Engelhardt²,

Foster³

et al. 2020

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On April 7, 2020, Wisconsin held a major election for state positions and presidential preference for both major parties. News reports showed pictures of long lines of voters due to fewer polling locations and suggested that the election may further the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. A contact-tracing analysis by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services identified 71 confirmed cases of COVID-19 to in-person voting, but no research has conducted a broader analysis of the extent to which in-person voting increased the number of COVID-19 cases. We use county level data on voting and COVID-19 tests to connect the election to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We find a statistically and economically significant association between in-person voting and the spread of COVID-19 two to three weeks after the election. Results indicate that on average a 10% difference in in-person voters per polling location between counties is associated with approximately a 17.7% increase in the positive test rate. Further, extrapolation of estimates from the average county suggests that in-person voting was related to approximately 700 more COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin during the weeks following the election, or about 7.7% of the total number of confirmed cases during the five week post-treatment time period studied.

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Are the Effects of Adoption and Termination of Shelter-in-Place Orders Symmetric? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Cited by 25 publications

References 10 publications

JUE Insight: Were urban cowboys enough to control COVID-19? Local shelter-in-place orders and coronavirus case growth

JUE Insight: Were urban cowboys enough to control COVID-19? Local shelter-in-place orders and coronavirus case growth

Does Precise Case Information Limit Precautionary Behavior? Evidence from COVID-19 in Singapore

The Relationship between In-Person Voting and COVID-19: Evidence from the Wisconsin Primary

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