IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/120492.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effect of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Kovacs, Roxanne J.
  • Dunaiski, Maurice
  • Tukiainen, Janne

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate about face masks being made compulsory in public spaces to contain COVID-19. A key concern is that such policies could undermine efforts to maintain social distancing and reduce mobility. We provide first evidence on the impact of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility. We exploit the staggered implementation of policies by German states during the first wave of the pandemic and measure mobility using geo-located smartphone data. We find that compulsory face mask policies led to a short-term reduction in community mobility, with no significant medium-term effects. We can rule out even small increases in mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Kovacs, Roxanne J. & Dunaiski, Maurice & Tukiainen, Janne, 2023. "The effect of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility in Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120492, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:120492
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120492/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2018. "The wild bootstrap for few (treated) clusters," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(2), pages 114-135, June.
    2. Allcott, Hunt & Boxell, Levi & Conway, Jacob & Gentzkow, Matthew & Thaler, Michael & Yang, David, 2020. "Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    4. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    5. Kosfeld, Reinhold & Mitze, Timo & Rode, Johannes & Wälde, Klaus, 2021. "The Covid-19 containment effects of public health measures - A spatial difference-in-differences approach," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 126127, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    6. Briscese, Guglielmo & Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario & Tonin, Mirco, 2023. "Expectations, reference points, and compliance with COVID-19 social distancing measures," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    7. Gregory A. Wellenius & Swapnil Vispute & Valeria Espinosa & Alex Fabrikant & Thomas C. Tsai & Jonathan Hennessy & Andrew Dai & Brian Williams & Krishna Gadepalli & Adam Boulanger & Adam Pearce & Chait, 2021. "Impacts of social distancing policies on mobility and COVID-19 case growth in the US," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-7, December.
    8. Noémi Kreif & Richard Grieve & Dominik Hangartner & Alex James Turner & Silviya Nikolova & Matt Sutton, 2016. "Examination of the Synthetic Control Method for Evaluating Health Policies with Multiple Treated Units," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(12), pages 1514-1528, December.
    9. Alberto Alesina & Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln, 2005. "Good bye Lenin (or not?): The effect of Communism on people's preferences," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2076, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    10. Philipp Breidenbach & Timo Mitze, 2022. "Large-scale sport events and COVID-19 infection effects: evidence from the German professional football ‘experiment’ [Semiparametric difference-in-differences estimators]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(1), pages 15-45.
    11. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    12. Reinhold Kosfeld & Timo Mitze & Johannes Rode & Klaus Wälde, 2021. "The Covid‐19 containment effects of public health measures: A spatial difference‐in‐differences approach," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 799-825, September.
    13. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    14. Thuy D. Nguyen & Sumedha Gupta & Martin S. Andersen & Ana I. Bento & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2021. "Impacts of state COVID‐19 reopening policy on human mobility and mixing behavior," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(2), pages 458-486, October.
    15. Thomas de Haan & Jona Linde, 2018. "‘Good Nudge Lullaby’: Choice Architecture and Default Bias Reinforcement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(610), pages 1180-1206, May.
    16. Paul Dolan & Daniel Kahneman, 2008. "Interpretations Of Utility And Their Implications For The Valuation Of Health," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 215-234, January.
    17. Seres, Gyula & Balleyer, Anna & Cerutti, Nicola & Friedrichsen, Jana & Süer, Müge, 2021. "Face mask use and physical distancing before and after mandatory masking: No evidence on risk compensation in public waiting lines," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 765-781.
    18. Daoust, Jean-François & Nadeau, Richard & Dassonneville, Ruth & Lachapelle, Erick & Bélanger, Éric & Savoie, Justin & van der Linden, Clifton, 2020. "How to survey citizens’ compliance with COVID-19 public health measures? Evidence from three survey experiments," SocArXiv gursd, Center for Open Science.
    19. Susan Godlonton & Alister Munthali & Rebecca Thornton, 2016. "Responding to Risk: Circumcision, Information, and HIV Prevention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 333-349, May.
    20. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2019. "Wild Bootstrap Randomization Inference for Few Treated Clusters," Advances in Econometrics, in: The Econometrics of Complex Survey Data, volume 39, pages 61-85, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    21. Mitze, Timo & Rode, Johannes, 2022. "Early-stage spatial disease surveillance of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in Germany with crowdsourced data," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 130543, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    22. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    23. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    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. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    2. Kovacs, Roxanne & Dunaiski, Maurice & Tukiainen, Janne, 2020. "Compulsory face mask policies do not affect community mobility in Germany," EconStor Preprints 218945, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. Kayaoglu, Aysegul, 2022. "Do refugees cause crime?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Damian Clarke & Kathya Tapia-Schythe, 2021. "Implementing the panel event study," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 21(4), pages 853-884, December.
    5. James G. MacKinnon, 2019. "How cluster-robust inference is changing applied econometrics," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 851-881, August.
    6. Bruno Ferman, 2023. "Inference in difference‐in‐differences: How much should we trust in independent clusters?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 358-369, April.
    7. Andrea Ciaccio, 2023. "The Impact of a Cost-containment Measure on the Quality of Regional Health Services in Italy: a Parametric and a Non-parametric Approach," Working Papers 2023: 24, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    8. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    9. MacKinnon, James G. & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard & Webb, Matthew D., 2023. "Cluster-robust inference: A guide to empirical practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(2), pages 272-299.
    10. Goussé, Marion & Leturcq, Marion, 2022. "More or less unmarried. The impact of legal settings of cohabitation on labour market outcomes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    11. Athey, Susan & Imbens, Guido W., 2022. "Design-based analysis in Difference-In-Differences settings with staggered adoption," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 62-79.
    12. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    13. Huber, Martin, 2019. "An introduction to flexible methods for policy evaluation," FSES Working Papers 504, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland.
    14. Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Reworking wild bootstrap‐based inference for clustered errors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 839-858, August.
    15. Li, Wenbo, 2023. "The effect of China's driving restrictions on air pollution: The role of a policy announcement without a stated expiration," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    16. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Churchill, Brandyn F. & Marcus, Michelle, 2023. "Bad lighting: Effects of youth indoor tanning prohibitions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. Mikhail Mamonov & Anna Pestova & Steven Ongena, 2023. "“Crime and Punishment”? How Banks Anticipate and Propagate Global Financial Sanctions," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp753, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    18. Meinhofer, Angélica & Witman, Allison E. & Hinde, Jesse M. & Simon, Kosali, 2021. "Marijuana liberalization policies and perinatal health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    19. Dave, Dhaval & Liang, Yang & Pesko, Michael F. & Phillips, Serena & Sabia, Joseph J., 2023. "Have recreational marijuana laws undermined public health progress on adult tobacco use?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    20. Christopher S. Carpenter & Gilbert Gonzales Jr. & Tara McKay & Dario Sansone, 2020. "Effects of the Affordable Care Act Dependent Coverage Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage for Individuals in Same-Sex Couples," NBER Working Papers 26978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Covid-19; coronavirus; face masks; social distancing; community mobility; Wellcome Research Fellowships in Humanities and Social Science 219744/Z/19/Z;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • 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:ehl:lserod:120492. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.