Staggered Health Policy Adoption: Spillover Effects and Their Implications

Vadim Elenev (), Luis Quintero (), Alessandro Rebucci () and Emilia Simeonova ()
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Vadim Elenev: Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21202
Luis Quintero: Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21202
Alessandro Rebucci: Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21202; and ABFER, Singapore 117592; and CEPR, London EC1V 0DX, United Kingdom; and NBER, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Emilia Simeonova: Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21202; and NBER, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138; and IZA, 53113 Bonn, Germany

Management Science, 2025, vol. 71, issue 8, 7071-7093

Abstract: This paper investigates the direct and spillover effects on mobility caused by the staggered adoption of stay-at-home orders (SHOs) implemented by U.S. counties to contain COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. We find that mobility in neighboring counties declines by a third to a half as much as in the counties that implement the SHOs. Furthermore, these spillovers are concentrated in counties that share media markets with treated counties. Using directional mobility data, we also find that declines in internal mobility in the neighbor counties account for a much larger proportion of the overall decline in mobility than decreases in traffic originating in the treated counties. Together, these results provide strong evidence that SHOs operate through information sharing and voluntary social distancing. Based on our estimates and a simple model of staggered SHO adoption, we construct counterfactual scenarios that separate the impact of policy coordination from that of adoption timing. We find that staggered implementation of SHOs could yield mobility reductions that are larger than coordinated but delayed SHO adoption.

Keywords: COVID-19; smartphone-based mobility data; media markets; nonpharmaceutical interventions; place-based policies; spillovers; stay-at-home orders; voluntary social distancing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:71:y:2025:i:8:p:7071-7093

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