Electoral concerns reduce restrictive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic

Massimo Pulejo and Pablo Querubin

Journal of Public Economics, 2021, vol. 198, issue C

Abstract: The outbreak of COVID-19 has called for swift action by governments, often involving the adoption of restrictive measures such as lockdowns. In this context, leaders have faced a trade-off between imposing stringent measures to limit the contagion, and minimizing the short-run costs on their national economy, which could impact their electoral prospects. Leveraging on both the timing of elections and the constitutional term limits faced by leaders in presidential systems, we document how incumbents who can run for re-election implement less stringent restrictions when the election is closer in time. The effect is driven by measures more likely to have a negative economic impact. This shows how electoral concerns help explain the observed differences in the response to the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic across different countries.

Keywords: COVID-19; Public policy; Public health; Elections; Restrictions; Lockdown (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272721000232
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Electoral Concerns Reduce Restrictive Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0047272721000232

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104387

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().