IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10023.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Lockdown a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: The Global Effectiveness of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions in Mitigating the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Anthonin Levelu
  • Alexander-Nikolai Sandkamp

Abstract

Countries have employed a variety of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in order to curtail the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the success of individual measures in reducing the number of infections remains controversial. This paper exploits a panel data set of 181 countries to estimate the effects of twelve NPIs on the spread of the disease in 2020. The employed fixed effects estimation greatly reduces endogeneity concerns. While almost all measures had a dampening effect on the reproduction rate of the virus, school closings and restrictions on gatherings were most effective, followed by international travel restrictions and contact tracing. The obligation to wear face masks was more effective during the second wave. Measures requiring significant resources, such as testing, were more effective in developed countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthonin Levelu & Alexander-Nikolai Sandkamp, 2022. "A Lockdown a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: The Global Effectiveness of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions in Mitigating the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 10023, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10023.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro CARRARO & Lucia FERRONE & Margherita SQUARCINA, 2020. "Are COVID-19 Containment Measures Equally Effective in Different World Regions?," Working Papers - Economics wp2020_11.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    2. Thomas Hale & Noam Angrist & Rafael Goldszmidt & Beatriz Kira & Anna Petherick & Toby Phillips & Samuel Webster & Emily Cameron-Blake & Laura Hallas & Saptarshi Majumdar & Helen Tatlow, 2021. "A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker)," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 529-538, April.
    3. Felbermayr Gabriel & Hinz Julian & Chowdhry Sonali, 2021. "Après-ski: The spread of coronavirus from Ischgl through Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 22(4), pages 415-446, November.
    4. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Fadinger, Harald & Schymik, Jan, 2021. "My home is my castle – The benefits of working from home during a pandemic crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    5. Daniel Hoechle, 2007. "Robust standard errors for panel regressions with cross-sectional dependence," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 281-312, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Levelu, Anthonin & Sandkamp, Alexander-Nikolai, 2022. "A lockdown a day keeps the doctor away: The effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic," Kiel Working Papers 2221, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2022. "Working from Home Around the World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 53(2 (Fall)), pages 281-360.
    3. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Falck, Oliver & Schüller, Simone, 2023. "Germany’s capacity to work from home," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Sabina Marchetti & Alessandro Borin & Francesco Paolo Conteduca & Giuseppe Ilardi & Giorgio Guzzetta & Piero Poletti & Patrizio Pezzotti & Antonino Bella & Paola Stefanelli & Flavia Riccardo & Stefano, 2022. "An Epidemic Model for SARS-CoV-2 with Self-Adaptive Containment Measures," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 681, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Piotr Lewandowski & Katarzyna Lipowska & Mateusz Smoter, 2022. "Working from home during a pandemic – a discrete choice experiment in Poland," IBS Working Papers 03/2022, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    6. Hannah Carver & Tracey Price & Danilo Falzon & Peter McCulloch & Tessa Parkes, 2022. "Stress and Wellbeing during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Frontline Homelessness Services Staff Experiences in Scotland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-20, March.
    7. Veronika Harantová & Ambróz Hájnik & Alica Kalašová & Tomasz Figlus, 2022. "The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Traffic Flow Characteristics, Emissions Production and Fuel Consumption at a Selected Intersection in Slovakia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-21, March.
    8. Ran, Qiying & Yang, Xiaodong & Yan, Hongchuan & Xu, Yang & Cao, Jianhong, 2023. "Natural resource consumption and industrial green transformation: Does the digital economy matter?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Martina Vukašina & Ines Kersan-Škabiæ & Edvard Orliæ, 2022. "Impact of European structural and investment funds absorption on the regional development in the EU–12 (new member states)," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 17(4), pages 857-880, December.
    10. Ding, Mingfa, 2014. "Political Connections and Stock Liquidity: Political Network, Hierarchy and Intervention," Knut Wicksell Working Paper Series 2014/7, Lund University, Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies.
    11. Younes Gholizadeh, 2020. "Causality Relationship between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in the European Union Countries," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2020/12, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    12. Xiao Chen & Hanwei Huang & Jiandong Ju & Ruoyan Sun & Jialiang Zhang, 2022. "Endogenous cross-region human mobility and pandemics," CEP Discussion Papers dp1860, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Skare, Marinko & Gavurova, Beata & Sinkovic, Dean, 2023. "Regional aspects of financial development and renewable energy: A cross-sectional study in 214 countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1142-1157.
    14. Yekaterina Chzhen & Jennifer Symonds & Dympna Devine & Júlia Mikolai & Susan Harkness & Seaneen Sloan & Gabriela Martinez Sainz, 2022. "Learning in a Pandemic: Primary School children’s Emotional Engagement with Remote Schooling during the spring 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown in Ireland," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(4), pages 1517-1538, August.
    15. Mirko Licchetta & Giovanni Mattozzi & Rafal Raciborski & Rupert Willis, 2022. "Economic Adjustment in the Euro Area and the United States during the COVID-19 Crisis," European Economy - Discussion Papers 160, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    16. Alessandro Federici & Pierluigi Montalbano, 2012. "Macroeconomic volatility, consumption behaviour and welfare: A cross-country analysis," Working Paper Series 3612, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    17. Aynur Pala, 2014. "The Effect of Valuation Ratios, Gold Price, and Petroleum Price on Equity Returns: A Comparison of Static Panel and Quantile Regressions," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 4(1), pages 80-89, January.
    18. Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian & Kecht, Valentin & Lehmann, Robert, 2022. "The diffusion of technological progress in ICT," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    19. Kai Daniel Schmid & Michael Schmidt, 2012. "EMU and the Renaissance of Sovereign Credit Risk Perception," IAW Discussion Papers 87, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW).
    20. Lucia Freira & Marco Sartorio & Cynthia Boruchowicz & Florencia Lopez Boo & Joaquin Navajas, 2021. "The interplay between partisanship, forecasted COVID-19 deaths, and support for preventive policies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Covid-19; non-pharmaceutical interventions; policy analysis; panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10023. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.