The spread of social distancing

Jonathan Cook, Noah Newberger and Sami Smalling

Economics Letters, 2020, vol. 196, issue C

Abstract: We find that social distancing is affected by the policies set in neighboring counties, even after controlling for confirmed COVID cases and weather. A stay-at-home order in a neighboring county reduces social distancing by more than half as much as implementing an order in that county. This implies that, to increase social distancing in hard-hit counties, stay-at-home orders need to be implemented in a regionally or federally coordinated response. We also find that estimates of the efficacy of stay-at-home orders that do not control for policies in neighboring counties overstate the effect of these orders by about 50%.

Keywords: COVID-19; Social distancing; Spillover effects; Spatial autoregression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:196:y:2020:i:c:s0165176520303128

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109511

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