 The gray zone: How not imposing a strict lockdown at the beginning of a pandemic can cost many livesFederico Crudu (), Roberta Di Stefano, Giovanni Mellace and Silvia Tiezzi Labour Economics, 2024, vol. 89, issue C Abstract: The public debate on the effectiveness of lockdown measures is far from being settled. We estimate the impact of not having implemented a strict lockdown in the Bergamo province, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite observing an infection rate in this area similar to the one observed in nearby municipalities where a strict lockdown was instead promptly implemented. We estimate the causal effect of this policy decision on daily excess mortality using the synthetic control method (SCM). We find that about two-thirds of the reported deaths could have been avoided had the Italian government declared a Red Zone in the Bergamo province. We also clarify that, in this context, SCM and difference-in-differences implicitly restrict effect heterogeneity. We provide a way to empirically assess the credibility of this assumption in our setting. Keywords: COVID-19; Causal impact; Synthetic control method; Red zone; Bergamo; Non-pharmaceutical interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:89:y:2024:i:c:s0927537124000757 DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102580 Access Statistics for this article Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier |
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