Are Spaniards Happier When the Bars Are Open? Using Life Satisfaction to Evaluate COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)

Pablo de Pedraza and María Rosalía Vicente
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Pablo de Pedraza: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy
María Rosalía Vicente: Applied Economics, University of Oviedo, 33006 Oviedo, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-13

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged governments worldwide with the design of appropriate policies that maximize health outcomes while minimizing economic and mental health consequences. This paper explores sources of individuals’ life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic, paying special attention to the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). We studied the specific case of Spanish regions and focused on bar and restaurant closures using data from a continuous voluntary web survey that we merged with information about region-specific policies that identified when and where bars and restaurants were closed. We estimated an endogenous binary-treatment-regression model and found that closing bars and restaurants had a significant negative impact on happiness. The results were statistically significant after controlling for the pandemic context, health, income, work, and other personal characteristics and circumstances. We interpreted the results in terms of the positive effect of socialization, individuals’ feelings of freedom, and the comparative nature of life satisfaction.

Keywords: COVID-19; NPIs; life satisfaction; mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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