Political polarization and cooperation during a pandemic

Kirsten Cornelson and Boriana Miloucheva

Health Economics, 2022, vol. 31, issue 9, 2025-2049

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the relationship between political polarization and individuals' willingness to contribute to the public good by engaging in preventative behaviors against COVID‐19. Using a sample of individuals from close‐election states, we first show that individuals engage in fewer preventative behaviors when the governor of their state is from the opposite party. We also show that this effect is concentrated among moderate individuals who live in polarized states, and that it is strongest when the state has been relatively forceful in combating COVID‐19. We estimate that the opposite‐party effect increased COVID‐19 cases by around 1%.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4560

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:wly:hlthec:v:31:y:2022:i:9:p:2025-2049

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().