Estimating the impact of social distance policy in mitigating COVID-19 spread with factor-based imputation approach

Difang Huang (), Ying Liang (), Boyao Wu () and Yanyi Ye ()
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Difang Huang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ying Liang: Toulouse School of Management
Boyao Wu: University of International Business and Economics
Yanyi Ye: Beijing University of Chemical Technology

Empirical Economics, 2025, vol. 68, issue 2, No 5, 585-601

Abstract: Abstract We identify the effectiveness of social distancing policies in reducing the transmission of the COVID-19 spread. We build a model that measures the relative frequency and geographic distribution of the virus growth rate and provides hypothetical infection distribution in the states that enacted the social distancing policies, where we control time-varying, observed and unobserved, state-level heterogeneities. Using panel data on infection and deaths in all US states from February 20 to April 20, 2020, we find that stay-at-home orders and other types of social distancing policies significantly reduced the growth rate of infection and deaths. We show that the effects are time varying and range from the weakest at the beginning of policy intervention to the strongest by the end of our sample period. We also found that social distancing policies were more effective in states with higher income, better education, more white people, more democratic voters, and higher CNN viewership.

Keywords: COVID-19; Social distancing; Interactive fixed effects; Treatment effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C30 C31 H0 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-024-02649-1

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