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Ebola and State Legitimacy

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  • Matthias Flückiger
  • Markus Ludwig
  • Ali Sina Önder

Abstract

We exploit the West African Ebola epidemic as an event that necessitated the provision of a common-interest public good, Ebola control measures, to empirically investigate the effect of public good provision on state legitimacy. Our results show that state legitimacy, measured by trust in government authorities, increased with exposure to the epidemic. We argue, supported by results from SMS-message-based surveys, that a potentially important channel underlying this finding is a greater valuation of control measures in regions with intense transmission. Evidence further indicates that the effects of Ebola exposure are more pronounced in areas where governments responded relatively robustly to the epidemic.

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  • Matthias Flückiger & Markus Ludwig & Ali Sina Önder, 2019. "Ebola and State Legitimacy," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2064-2089.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:621:p:2064-2089.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecoj.12638
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    7. Filipe R. Campante & Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Ruben Durante, 2020. "The Virus of Fear: The Political Impact of Ebola in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 26897, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Eva‐Maria Egger & Sam Jones & Patricia Justino & Ivan Manhique & Ricardo Santos, 2023. "Africa's lockdown dilemma: High poverty and low trust," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 1648-1666, October.
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    10. Arnstein Aassve & Guido Alfani & Francesco Gandolfi & Marco Le Moglie, 2021. "Epidemics and trust: The case of the Spanish Flu," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 840-857, April.
    11. Arin, K. Peren & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Moro-Egido, Ana I. & Thum, Marcel, 2022. "Exploring the hidden impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of urbanization," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
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