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Japan’s Voluntary Lockdown

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  • Tsutomu Watanabe

    (Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo)

  • Tomoyoshi Yabu

    (Faculty of Business and Commerce, Keio University)

Abstract

Japan’s government has taken a number of measures, including declaring a state of emergency, to combat the spread COVID-19. We examine the mechanisms through which the government’s policies have led to changes in people’s behavior. Using smartphone location data, we construct a daily prefecture-level stay-at-home measure to identify the following two effects: (1) the effect that citizens refrained from going out in line with the government’s request, and (2) the effect that government announcements reinforced awareness with regard to the seriousness of the pandemic and people voluntarily refrained from going out. Our main findings are as follows. First, the declaration of the state of emergency reduced the number of people leaving their homes by 8.6% through the first channel, which is of the same order of magnitude as the estimate by Goolsbee and Syverson (2020) for lockdowns in the United States. Second, a 1% increase in new infections in a prefecture reduces people’s outings in that prefecture by 0.026%. Third, the government’s requests are responsible for about one quarter of the decrease in outings in Tokyo, while the remaining three quarters are the result of citizens obtaining new information through government announcements and the daily release of the number of infections. Our results suggest that what is necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19 is not strong, legally binding measures but the provision of appropriate information that encourages people to change their behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsutomu Watanabe & Tomoyoshi Yabu, 2020. "Japan’s Voluntary Lockdown," CARF F-Series CARF-F-492, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf492
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    9. Diane Alexander & Ezra Karger, 2023. "Do Stay-at-Home Orders Cause People to Stay at Home? Effects of Stay-at-Home Orders on Consumer Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1017-1027, July.
    10. Forsythe, Eliza & Kahn, Lisa B. & Lange, Fabian & Wiczer, David, 2020. "Labor demand in the time of COVID-19: Evidence from vacancy postings and UI claims," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    11. Marc F. Bellemare & Casey J. Wichman, 2020. "Elasticities and the Inverse Hyperbolic Sine Transformation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(1), pages 50-61, February.
    12. Goolsbee, Austan & Syverson, Chad, 2021. "Fear, lockdown, and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    13. Felipe Lozano Rojas & Xuan Jiang & Laura Montenovo & Kosali I. Simon & Bruce A. Weinberg & Coady Wing, 2020. "Is the Cure Worse than the Problem Itself? Immediate Labor Market Effects of COVID-19 Case Rates and School Closures in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 27127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Distancing and Lockdown > Voluntary

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    Cited by:

    1. Satoshi Tanaka, 2022. "Economic Impacts of SARS/MERS/COVID‐19 in Asian Countries," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 17(1), pages 41-61, January.
    2. Mitsuhiro Fukao & Etsuro Shioji, 2022. "Is There a Trade‐Off between COVID‐19 Control and Economic Activity? Implications from the Phillips Curve Debate," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 17(1), pages 66-85, January.
    3. KONDO Keisuke, 2020. "Simulating the Impacts of Interregional Mobility Restriction on the Spatial Spread of COVID-19 in Japan," Discussion papers 20089, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Hosono, Kaoru, 2021. "Epidemic and Economic Consequences of Voluntary and Request-based Lockdowns in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

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