IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13314.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Did the Wisconsin Supreme Court Restart a COVID-19 Epidemic? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Dave, Dhaval M.

    (Bentley University)

  • Friedson, Andrew I.

    (University of Colorado Denver)

  • Matsuzawa, Kyutaro

    (San Diego State University)

  • McNichols, Drew

    (San Diego State University)

  • Sabia, Joseph J.

    (San Diego State University)

Abstract

Both the White House and state governors have explicitly linked thresholds of reduced COVID-19 case growth to the lifting of statewide shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). This "hardwired" policy endogeneity creates empirical challenges in credibly isolating the causal effect of lifting a statewide SIPO on COVID-19-related health. To break this simultaneity problem, the current study exploits a unique natural experiment generated by a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision. On May 13, 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court abolished the state's "Safer at Home" order, ruling that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services unconstitutionally usurped legislative authority to review COVID-19 regulations. We capitalize on this sudden, dramatic, and largely unanticipated termination of a statewide SIPO to estimate its effect on social distancing and COVID-19 case growth. Using a synthetic control design, we find no evidence that the repeal of the state SIPO impacted social distancing, COVID-19 cases, or COVID-19-related mortality during the fortnight following enactment. Estimated effects were economically small and nowhere near statistically different from zero. We conclude that the impact of shelter-in-place orders is likely not symmetric across enactment and lifting of the orders.

Suggested Citation

  • Dave, Dhaval M. & Friedson, Andrew I. & Matsuzawa, Kyutaro & McNichols, Drew & Sabia, Joseph J., 2020. "Did the Wisconsin Supreme Court Restart a COVID-19 Epidemic? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 13314, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13314.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Couch, Kenneth A. & Fairlie, Robert W. & Xu, Huanan, 2020. "The Impacts of COVID-19 on Minority Unemployment: First Evidence from April 2020 CPS Microdata," IZA Discussion Papers 13264, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    3. Scott Cunningham & Manisha Shah, 2018. "Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution: Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1683-1715.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Sumedha Gupta & Thuy D. Nguyen & Felipe Lozano Rojas & Shyam Raman & Byungkyu Lee & Ana Bento & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2020. "Tracking Public and Private Responses to the COVID-19 Epidemic: Evidence from State and Local Government Actions," NBER Working Papers 27027, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Benjamin Hansen & Keaton Miller & Caroline Weber, 2020. "Early Evidence On Recreational Marijuana Legalization And Traffic Fatalities," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(2), pages 547-568, April.
    8. David Holtz & Michael Zhao & Seth G. Benzell & Cathy Y. Cao & Mohammad Amin Rahimian & Jeremy Yang & Jennifer Allen & Avinash Collis & Alex Moehring & Tara Sowrirajan & Dipayan Ghosh & Yunhao Zhang & , 2020. "Interdependence and the cost of uncoordinated responses to COVID-19," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(33), pages 19837-19843, August.
    9. Chad Cotti & Bryan Engelhardt & Joshua Foster & Erik Nesson & Paul Niekamp, 2021. "The relationship between in‐person voting and COVID‐19: Evidence from the Wisconsin primary," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 760-777, October.
    10. 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.
    11. Kaul, Ashok & Klößner, Stefan & Pfeifer, Gregor & Schieler, Manuel, 2015. "Synthetic Control Methods: Never Use All Pre-Intervention Outcomes Together With Covariates," MPRA Paper 83790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Dhaval M. Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Joseph J. Sabia & Samuel Safford, 2020. "Were Urban Cowboys Enough to Control COVID-19? Local Shelter-in-Place Orders and Coronavirus Case Growth," NBER Working Papers 27229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Irene Botosaru & Bruno Ferman, 2019. "On the role of covariates in the synthetic control method," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 22(2), pages 117-130.
    14. Andrew Goodman-Bacon & Jan Marcus, 2020. "Difference-in-Differences to Identify Causal Effects of COVID-19 Policies," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1870, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Baek, ChaeWon & McCrory, Peter B & Messer, Todd & Mui, Preston, 2020. "Unemployment Effects of Stay-at-Home Orders: Evidence from High Frequency Claims Data," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt042177j7, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dave, Dhaval M. & Friedson, Andrew I. & Matsuzawa, Kyutaro & Sabia, Joseph J. & Safford, Samuel, 2020. "Black Lives Matter Protests, Social Distancing, and COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13388, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Carlin, Patrick R. & Minard, Paul & Simon, Daniel H. & Wing, Coady, 2021. "Effects of large gatherings on the COVID-19 epidemic: Evidence from professional and college sports," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    3. Edoardo di Porto & Paolo Naticchioni & Vincenzo Scrutinio, 2020. "Partial lockdown and the spread of Covid-19: lessons from the Italian case," CEP Discussion Papers dp1720, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Dhaval M. Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Joseph J. Sabia & Samuel Safford, 2020. "Black Lives Matter Protests and Risk Avoidance: The Case of Civil Unrest During a Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27408, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. David J. Hebert & Michael D. Curry, 2022. "Optimal lockdowns," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(3), pages 263-274, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Chad Cotti & Bryan Engelhardt & Joshua Foster & Erik Nesson & Paul Niekamp, 2021. "The relationship between in‐person voting and COVID‐19: Evidence from the Wisconsin primary," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 760-777, October.
    8. Herby, Jonas & Jonung, Lars & Hanke, Steve, 2022. "A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on Covid-19 Mortality - II," MPRA Paper 113732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Dhaval M. Dave & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia, 2021. "Political Violence, Risk Aversion, and Non-Localized Disease Spread: Evidence from the U.S. Capitol Riot," NBER Working Papers 28410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Checo Ariadne & Grigoli Francesco & Mota Jose M., 2022. "Assessing Targeted Containment Policies to Fight COVID-19," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 159-196, January.
    11. Koppa, Vijetha & West, Jeremy, 2022. "School reopenings, COVID-19, and employment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    12. Johnson, Evan & Hemmatian, Iman & Lanahan, Lauren & Joshi, Amol M., 2022. "A Framework and Databases for Measuring Entrepreneurial Ecosystems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    13. Callaway, Brantly & Li, Tong, 2023. "Policy evaluation during a pandemic," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 236(1).
    14. Dave, Dhaval & Friedson, Andrew & Matsuzawa, Kyutaro & Sabia, Joseph J. & Safford, Samuel, 2022. "JUE Insight: Were urban cowboys enough to control COVID-19? Local shelter-in-place orders and coronavirus case growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    15. Aleksey N. Raskhodchikov & Maria Pilgun, 2023. "COVID-19 and Public Health: Analysis of Opinions in Social Media," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-27, January.
    16. Dhaval M. Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia, 2020. "The Contagion Externality of a Superspreading Event: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 27813, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Peter T. Leeson & Louis Rouanet, 2021. "Externality and COVID‐19," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(4), pages 1107-1118, April.
    18. Dhaval M. Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Drew McNichols & Connor Redpath & Joseph J. Sabia, 2020. "Risk Aversion, Offsetting Community Effects, and COVID-19: Evidence from an Indoor Political Rally," NBER Working Papers 27522, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Porto, Edoardo Di & Naticchioni, Paolo & Scrutinio, Vincenzo, 2022. "Lockdown, essential sectors, and Covid-19: Lessons from Italy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    20. Etienne Farvaque & Hira Iqbal & Nicolas Ooghe, 2020. "Health politics? Determinants of US states’ reactions to COVID-19," Post-Print hal-03128875, HAL.
    21. Charles Courtemanche & Joseph Garuccio & Anh Le & Joshua Pinkston & Aaron Yelowitz, 2021. "Chance elections, social distancing restrictions, and KENTUCKY’s early COVID-19 experience," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(7), pages 1-19, July.
    22. Goolsbee, Austan & Syverson, Chad, 2021. "Fear, lockdown, and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    23. Johnson, Evan E. & Hemmatian, Iman & Lanahan, Lauren & Joshi, Amol M., 2022. "A framework and databases for measuring entrepreneurial ecosystems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(9).
    24. Janssen, Aljoscha & Shapiro, Matthew H., 2021. "Does precise case disclosure limit precautionary behavior? Evidence from COVID-19 in Singapore," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 700-714.
    25. Fayaz Farkhad, Bita & Albarracín, Dolores, 2021. "Insights on the implications of COVID-19 mitigation measures for mental health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).

    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. Dhaval M. Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia, 2020. "Are the Effects of Adoption and Termination of Shelter-in-Place Orders Symmetric? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," NBER Working Papers 27322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Andrew I. Friedson & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia & Dhaval Dave, 2021. "Shelter‐In‐Place Orders And Public Health: Evidence From California During The Covid‐19 Pandemic," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 258-283, January.
    3. Dhaval Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia, 2023. "Sudden lockdown repeals, social mobility, and COVID‐19: Evidence from a judicial natural experiment," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), pages 272-304, June.
    4. Denti, Daria & Iammarino, Simona, 2022. "Coming Out of the Woods. Do local support services influence the propensity to report sexual violence?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 334-352.
    5. Janssen, Aljoscha & Shapiro, Matthew, 2020. "Does Precise Case Information Limit Precautionary Behavior? Evidence from COVID-19 in Singapore," Working Paper Series 1344, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    6. Peter Backus & Thien Nguyen, 2021. "The Effect of the Sex Buyer Law on the Market for Sex, Sexual Health and Sexual Violence," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2106, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    7. Janssen, Aljoscha & Shapiro, Matthew H., 2021. "Does precise case disclosure limit precautionary behavior? Evidence from COVID-19 in Singapore," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 700-714.
    8. Dhaval Dave & Joseph J. Sabia & Samuel Safford, 2022. "The limits of reopening policy to alter economic behavior: New evidence from Texas," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 109-145, April.
    9. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    10. Dhaval Dave & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia, 2022. "Political violence, risk aversion, and population health: Evidence from the US Capitol riot," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1345-1384, October.
    11. Breinlich, Holger & Leromain, Elsa & Novy, Dennis & Sampson, Thomas, 2020. "Voting with their money: Brexit and outward investment by UK firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    12. Pier Basaglia & Sophie Behr & Moritz A. Drupp, 2023. "De-Fueling Externalities: How Tax Salience and Fuel Substitution Mediate Climate and Health Benefits," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2041, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto, 2021. "Synthetic controls with imperfect pretreatment fit," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4), pages 1197-1221, November.
    14. Pier Basaglia & Sophie M. Behr & Moritz A. Drupp, 2023. "De-Fueling Externalities: Causal Effects of Fuel Taxation and Mediating Mechanisms for Reducing Climate and Pollution Costs," CESifo Working Paper Series 10508, CESifo.
    15. Dhaval M. Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Drew McNichols & Connor Redpath & Joseph J. Sabia, 2020. "Risk Aversion, Offsetting Community Effects, and COVID-19: Evidence from an Indoor Political Rally," NBER Working Papers 27522, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Bibek Adhikari, 2022. "A Guide to Using the Synthetic Control Method to Quantify the Effects of Shocks, Policies, and Shocking Policies," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 67(1), pages 46-63, March.
    17. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Ferran A. Mazaira-Font, 2021. "Decoupling synthetic control methods to ensure stability, accuracy and meaningfulness," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 549-584, December.
    18. Klößner, Stefan & Pfeifer, Gregor, 2015. "Synthesizing Cash for Clunkers: Stabilizing the Car Market, Hurting the Environment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113207, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Adam Brzezinski & David Van Dijcke & Valentin Kecht, 2020. "The Cost of Staying Open: Voluntary Social Distancing and Lockdowns in the US," Economics Series Working Papers 910, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coronavirus; COVID-19; shelter-in-place order; synthetic control;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • 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:iza:izadps:dp13314. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.