What do we know, what we don't and what we cannot know so far about COVID-19: The case of Russia

Alexis Belianin () and Alexander Shivarov
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Alexander Shivarov: International College of Economics and Finance, Higher School of Economics

Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 2020, vol. 4, issue S3, 77-86

Abstract: The paper surveys the Russian experience of COVID-19 pandemia over the two waves: April-May and October-December 2020. We discuss the implementation of the various policy measures, including hospital capacity buidling, quarantine restrictions and behavioral nudging, and compare their efficiency against social costs. The analysis of COVID-19 dynamics is much restricted by the quality of the available data, which remains poor for a number of medical, statistical and political reasons. We argue that exogenous sources, such as the number of internet search queries related to COVID and excess mortality over the previous year, provide a more impartial picture of the pandemia. Using panel data regression analysis, we find that both official COVID-19 casualties and excess mortality are correlated with internet queries and population density, but lower excess mortality only is also explained by the exogenous characteristics of healthcare system, such as the number of ambulance staff and mean duration of hospital treatment. We conclude that better information and more diversified health policies are needed to fight the pandemia and its consequences.

Keywords: COVID-19; excess mortality; medical statistics; internet queries; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:4:y:2020:i:s3:p:77-86

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