Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Hunt Allcott, Levi Boxell, Jacob Conway, Matthew Gentzkow, Michael Thaler and David Yang

No 26946, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study partisan differences in Americans’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political leaders and media outlets on the right and left have sent divergent messages about the severity of the crisis, which could impact the extent to which Republicans and Democrats engage in social distancing and other efforts to reduce disease transmission. We develop a simple model of a pandemic response with heterogeneous agents that clarifies the causes and consequences of heterogeneous responses. We use location data from a large sample of smartphones to show that areas with more Republicans engaged in less social distancing, controlling for other factors including public policies, population density, and local COVID cases and deaths. We then present new survey evidence of significant gaps at the individual level between Republicans and Democrats in self-reported social distancing, beliefs about personal COVID risk, and beliefs about the future severity of the pandemic.

JEL-codes: D72 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-soc and nep-ure
Note: EH LS PE POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (428)

Published as Hunt Allcott & Levi Boxell & Jacob Conway & Matthew Gentzkow & Michael Thaler & David Yang, 2020. "Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, .

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Journal Article: Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic (2020)
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