Social Capital and the Spread of COVID-19: Insights from European Countries

Alina Kristin Bartscher (), Sebastian Seitz, Sebastian Siegloch, Michaela Slotwinski and Nils Wehrhöfer ()
Additional contact information
Alina Kristin Bartscher: University of Bonn
Nils Wehrhöfer: ZEW Mannheim

No 13310, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We explore the role of social capital in the spread of the recent Covid-19 pandemic in independent analyses for Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Exploiting within-country variation, we show that a one standard deviation increase in social capital leads to 12% and 32% fewer Covid-19 cases per capita accumulated from mid-March until mid-May. Using Italy as a case study, we find that high-social-capital areas exhibit lower excess mortality and a decline in mobility. Our results have important implications for the design of local containment policies in future waves of the pandemic.

Keywords: collective action; social capital; COVID-19; health costs; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 D04 D91 H11 H12 I10 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics, 2021, 80, 102531

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries (2021)
Working Paper: Social capital and the spread of Covid-19: Insights from European countries (2020)
Working Paper: Social Capital and the Spread of Covid-19: Insights from European Countries (2020)
Working Paper: Social capital and the spread of Covid-19: Insights from European countries (2020)
Working Paper: Social capital and the spread of Covid-19: Insights from European countries (2020)
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