The pre-pandemic political economy determinants of lockdown severity

Vincent Miozzi and Benjamin Powell ()
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Vincent Miozzi: Texas Tech University
Benjamin Powell: Texas Tech University

Public Choice, 2023, vol. 197, issue 1, No 5, 167-183

Abstract: Abstract We investigate the determinants of the severity of U.S. state-level lockdown regulations adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ a new measure of Lockdown Regulatory Freedom from Miozzi and Powell (Am J Econ Sociol, 2023b. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12512 ) to investigate whether pre-pandemic measures of economic freedom, political variables, and measures of COVID-19 exposure and severity impacted the severity of subsequent lockdowns. Our main finding is that the severity of a state’s lockdown regulations were primarily determined by pre-pandemic levels of economic freedom and pre-existing political ideology, as measured by the share of votes for the 2016 Democrat presidential candidate.

Keywords: Economic freedom; Pandemic; COVID-19; Lockdowns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 H10 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-023-01086-5

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