Cross-country effects and policy responses to COVID-19 in 2020: The Nordic countries

Daniel V. Gordon, R. Quentin Grafton and Stein Ivar Steinshamn

Economic Analysis and Policy, 2021, vol. 71, issue C, 198-210

Abstract: We provide a three-step analysis of the effects and responses to COVID-19 in Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), large Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom) and OECD Europe. First, we compare public health trends over 2020 in terms of per capita COVID-19 cases, fatalities, testing and the stringency of social distancing (SD) measures. Second, in a ‘like-with-like’ policy response model between Nordic countries, we test for the effects of air border closures on the growth in per capita COVID-19 cases while accounting for differences in stringency of social distancing and other measures. Third, using data from OECD European countries, we regress percentage change in GDP (2020–2019) on cumulative per capita national COVID-19 fatalities. We find that: (1) Sweden is an outlier, relative to its Nordic neighbours, in its COVID-19 public health outcomes; (2) Sweden would have had reduced cases and fatalities if it had adopted the air border closures implemented by its Nordic neighbours in the first half of 2020; and, (3) for OECD Europe, there is a statistically significant and negative association between per capita COVID-19 fatalities and economic performance.

Keywords: Social distancing; Border closures; Health-economic trade-offs; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C54 E01 H12 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 (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592621000643
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:ecanpo:v:71:y:2021:i:c:p:198-210

DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2021.04.015

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Analysis and Policy is currently edited by Clevo Wilson

More articles in Economic Analysis and Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().