Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19

Anastasios Papanastasiou, Bradley Ruffle and Angela Zheng

No 200004, Working Papers from Canadian Centre for Health Economics

Abstract: We study the factors associated with compliance with social-distancing regulations using a unique dataset on the behaviour of Ontarians during the COVID-19 pandemic. To start, we build a simple theoretical model of social distancing in order to understand how some individual and community-level factors influence compliance. We test our model's predictions by designing and conducting a survey on Ontarians in which we elicit their degree of compliance with current distancing regulations as well as proposed regulations that impose different fine levels on violators or grant wage subsidies to encourage staying at home. In line with the model's predictions, we show that variables related to one's risk of infection (e.g., health status, age, necessity of working outside the home, re-gional COVID-19 cases) are significant predictors of compliance as are gender, political beliefs, risk and time preferences. Furthermore, we demonstrate that fines and wage subsidies can be powerful policy tools for promoting full compliance with regulations.

Keywords: COVID-19; physical distancing; non-compliance fines; wage subsidies; risk of infection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2020-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published Online, September 2020
Forthcoming in Canadian Journal of Economics

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https://www.canadiancentreforhealtheconomics.ca/wp ... asiou_et-al_2020.pdf First version, 2020 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Compliance with social distancing: Theory and empirical evidence from Ontario during COVID‐19 (2022)
Working Paper: Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19 (2020)
Working Paper: Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19 (2020)
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