IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfi/wpaper/2020-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Belief in Science Influences Physical Distancing in Response to COVID-19 Lockdown Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Brzezinski

    (University of Oxford)

  • Valentin Kecht

    (Bocconi University)

  • David Van Dijcke

    (University of Oxford)

  • Austin L. Wright

    (University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy)

Abstract

Physical distancing reduces transmission risks and slows the spread of COVID-19. Local and regional governments in the United States have issued shelter-in-place policies to mandate physical distancing. Yet compliance with these policies is uneven and may be influenced by beliefs about science and topics of scientific consensus. We theorize that individuals skeptical about the human causes of climate change are less likely to comply with physical distancing orders. Using county-day measures of physical distancing derived from cellphone location data, we demonstrate that the proportion of people who stay at home after lockdown policies go into effect is significantly lower in counties with a high concentration of climate change skeptics. These results are consistent when we study how belief in science influences physical distancing across as well as within Democratic and Republican counties. Our findings suggest public health interventions and messaging about risks associated with COVID-19 that take into account local attitudes towards science may be more effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Brzezinski & Valentin Kecht & David Van Dijcke & Austin L. Wright, 2020. "Belief in Science Influences Physical Distancing in Response to COVID-19 Lockdown Policies," Working Papers 2020-56, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2020-56
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.bfi.uchicago.edu/RePEc/pdfs/BFI_WP_202056.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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).
    2. John M. Barrios & Yael Hochberg, 2020. "Risk Perception Through the Lens of Politics in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27008, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Andrew Goodman-Bacon, 2018. "Difference-in-Differences with Variation in Treatment Timing," NBER Working Papers 25018, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Peter D. Howe & Matto Mildenberger & Jennifer R. Marlon & Anthony Leiserowitz, 2015. "Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(6), pages 596-603, June.
    5. Kirsten Cornelson & Boriana Miloucheva, 2020. "Political polarization, social fragmentation, and cooperation during a pandemic," Working Papers tecipa-663, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    6. Thomas Barrios & Rebecca Diamond & Guido W. Imbens & Michal Kolesár, 2012. "Clustering, Spatial Correlations, and Randomization Inference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(498), pages 578-591, June.
    7. Solomon M. Hsiang & Amir S. Jina, 2014. "The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth: Evidence From 6,700 Cyclones," NBER Working Papers 20352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    2. Bazzi, Samuel & Fiszbein, Martin & Gebresilasse, Mesay, 2021. "“Rugged individualism” and collective (in)action during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    3. Painter, Marcus & Qiu, Tian, 2021. "Political beliefs affect compliance with government mandates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 688-701.
    4. Milosh, Maria & Painter, Marcus & Sonin, Konstantin & Van Dijcke, David & Wright, Austin L., 2021. "Unmasking partisanship: Polarization undermines public response to collective risk," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    5. Gallo, Edoardo & Barak, Darija & Langtry, Alastair, 2023. "Social distancing in networks: A web-based interactive experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Brzezinski, Adam & Deiana, Guido & Kecht, Valentin & Van Dijcke, David, 2020. "The COVID-19 Pandemic: Government vs. Community Action Across the United States," INET Oxford Working Papers 2020-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    7. Adam Brzezinski & Valentin Kecht & David Dijcke & Austin L. Wright, 2021. "Science skepticism reduced compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies in the United States," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(11), pages 1519-1527, November.
    8. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    9. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Matthew V. Zahn & Michèle Belot & Eline Broek-Altenburg & Syngjoo Choi & Julian C. Jamison & Egon Tripodi, 2021. "Socio-demographic factors associated with self-protecting behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 691-738, April.
    10. Yu, Jisang & Villoria, Nelson B. & Hendricks, Nathan P., 2019. "The Incidence of Foreign Market Accessibility on Farmland Rental Rates," 2019: Recent Advances in Applied General Equilibrium Modeling: Relevance and Application to Agricultural Trade Analysis, December 8-10, 2019, Washington, DC 339333, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    11. Shanike J. Smart & Solomon W. Polachek, 2024. "COVID-19 vaccine and risk-taking," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 25-49, February.
    12. Anindya Ghose & Beibei Li & Meghanath Macha & Chenshuo Sun & Natasha Ying Zhang Foutz, 2020. "Trading Privacy for the Greater Social Good: How Did America React During COVID-19?," Papers 2006.05859, arXiv.org.
    13. Ester Faia & Andreas Fuster & Vincenzo Pezone & Basit Zafar, 2024. "Biases in Information Selection and Processing: Survey Evidence from the Pandemic," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(3), pages 829-847, May.
    14. Bradley J. Larsen & Timothy J. Ryan & Steven Greene & Marc J. Hetherington & Rahsaan Maxwell & Steven Tadelis, 2022. "Using Donald Trump's COVID-19 Vaccine Endorsement to Give Public Health a Shot in the Arm: A Large-Scale Ad Experiment," Papers 2203.02625, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.
    15. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    16. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    17. John M. Barrios & Efraim Benmelech & Yael V. Hochberg & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2020. "Civic Capital and Social Distancing during the Covid-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Granja, João & Makridis, Christos & Yannelis, Constantine & Zwick, Eric, 2022. "Did the paycheck protection program hit the target?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 725-761.
    19. Paul Bokern & Jona Linde & Arno Riedl & Peter Werner, 2023. "The Robustness of Preferences during a Crisis: The Case of Covid-19," CESifo Working Paper Series 10595, CESifo.
    20. Sumedha Gupta & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2020. "Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review," NBER Working Papers 28139, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; physical distancing; belief in science; political partisanship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation

    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:bfi:wpaper:2020-56. 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: Toni Shears (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.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.