IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp14658.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Voting, Contagion and the Trade-Off between Public Health and Political Rights: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Italian 2020 Polls

Author

Listed:
  • Mello, Marco

    (University of Aberdeen)

  • Moscelli, Giuseppe

    (University of Surrey)

Abstract

We exploit a quasi-experimental setting provided by an election day with multiple polls to estimate the effect of voters' turnout on the spread of new COVID-19 infections and to quantify the policy trade-off implied by postponing elections during high infection periods. We show that post-poll new COVID cases increased by 1.1% for each additional percentage point of turnout. The cost-benefits analysis based on our estimates and real political events shows that averting an early general election has saved Italy up to about e362 million in additional hospital care costs and e7.5 billion in values of life saved from COVID.

Suggested Citation

  • Mello, Marco & Moscelli, Giuseppe, 2021. "Voting, Contagion and the Trade-Off between Public Health and Political Rights: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Italian 2020 Polls," IZA Discussion Papers 14658, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14658
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp14658.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Durante, Ruben & Guiso, Luigi & Gulino, Giorgio, 2021. "Asocial capital: Civic culture and social distancing during COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    2. Ingo E. Isphording & Marc Lipfert & Nico Pestel, 2021. "Does Re-Opening Schools Contribute to the Spread of Sars-Cov-2? Evidence From Staggered Summer Breaks in Germany," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_263, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    3. J. P. Florens & J. J. Heckman & C. Meghir & E. Vytlacil, 2008. "Identification of Treatment Effects Using Control Functions in Models With Continuous, Endogenous Treatment and Heterogeneous Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(5), pages 1191-1206, September.
    4. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1999. "Distribution-free estimation of some nonlinear panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 77-97, May.
    5. Raj Chetty & John N Friedman & Michael Stepner & Opportunity Insights Team & Camille Baker & Harvey Barnhard & Matt Bell & Gregory Bruich & Tina Chelidze & Lucas Chu & Westley Cineus & Sebi Devlin-Fol, 2024. "The Economic Impacts of COVID-19: Evidence from a New Public Database Built Using Private Sector Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(2), pages 829-889.
    6. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    7. Gema Zamarro & María J. Prados, 2021. "Gender differences in couples’ division of childcare, work and mental health during COVID-19," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 11-40, March.
    8. repec:fth:prinin:315 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Leroy, Aurélien & Lucotte, Yannick, 2017. "Is there a competition-stability trade-off in European banking?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 199-215.
    10. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    11. Picchio, Matteo & Santolini, Raffaella, 2022. "The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on voter turnout," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    12. Bach, Laurent & Guillouzouic, Arthur & Malgouyres, Clément, 2021. "Does holding elections during a Covid-19 pandemic put the lives of politicians at risk?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    13. Davide Cipullo & Marco Le Moglie, 2021. "To vote, or not to vote: on the epidemiological impact of electoral campaigns at the time of COVID-19," Papers 2103.11753, arXiv.org.
    14. Thiemo Fetzer & Lukas Hensel & Johannes Hermle & Christopher Roth, 2021. "Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 968–978-9, December.
    15. 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.
    16. Isphording, Ingo E. & Lipfert, Marc & Pestel, Nico, 2021. "Does re-opening schools contribute to the spread of SARS-CoV-2? Evidence from staggered summer breaks in Germany," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    17. Surya Singh & Mujaheed Shaikh & Katharina Hauck & Marisa Miraldo, 2021. "Impacts of introducing and lifting nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 daily growth rate and compliance in the United States," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(12), pages 2021359118-, March.
    18. Santos Silva, J.M.C. & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2011. "Further simulation evidence on the performance of the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 220-222, August.
    19. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2020. "Inequality in the impact of the coronavirus shock: Evidence from real time surveys," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    20. Posner, Richard A, 1981. "The Economics of Privacy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 405-409, May.
      • Posner, Richard A., 1980. "The Economics of Privacy," Working Papers 16, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    21. Marcella Alsan & Luca Braghieri & Sarah Eichmeyer & Minjeong Joyce Kim & Stefanie Stantcheva & David Y. Yang, 2023. "Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 389-421, October.
    22. Wagstaff, Adam, 1991. "QALYs and the equity-efficiency trade-off," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 21-41, May.
    23. Alexander Ahammer & Martin Halla & Mario Lackner, 2020. "Mass Gatherings Contributed to Early COVID-19 Mortality: Evidence from US Sports," Economics working papers 2020-13, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    24. Hainmueller, Jens & Xu, Yiqing, 2013. "ebalance: A Stata Package for Entropy Balancing," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 54(i07).
    25. Pierluigi Balduzzi & Emanuele Brancati & Marco Brianti & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2020. "Credit Constraints anf Firms' Decisions: Evidence from the COVID-19 Outbreak Italian Firms’ Expectations and Plans," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1013, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 07 Oct 2022.
    26. Terza, Joseph V. & Basu, Anirban & Rathouz, Paul J., 2008. "Two-stage residual inclusion estimation: Addressing endogeneity in health econometric modeling," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 531-543, May.
    27. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
    28. Carozzi, Felipe & Provenzano, Sandro & Roth, Sefi, 2020. "Urban Density and COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13440, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    29. Bleichrodt, Han & Doctor, Jason & Stolk, Elly, 2005. "A nonparametric elicitation of the equity-efficiency trade-off in cost-utility analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 655-678, July.
    30. 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.
    31. Ján Palguta & René Levínský & Samuel Škoda, 2022. "Do elections accelerate the COVID-19 pandemic?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 197-240, January.
    32. Aurélien Leroy & Yannick Lucotte, 2017. "Is there a competition-stability trade-off in European banking?," Post-Print hal-03529909, HAL.
    33. Cameron, A Colin & Trivedi, Pravin K, 1986. "Econometric Models Based on Count Data: Comparisons and Applications of Some Estimators and Tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 29-53, January.
    34. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    35. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    36. Erik Volz & Swapnil Mishra & Meera Chand & Jeffrey C. Barrett & Robert Johnson & Lily Geidelberg & Wes R. Hinsley & Daniel J. Laydon & Gavin Dabrera & Áine O’Toole & Robert Amato & Manon Ragonnet-Cron, 2021. "Assessing transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in England," Nature, Nature, vol. 593(7858), pages 266-269, May.
    37. Fenske, James & Wang, Shizhuo, 2023. "Tradition and mortality: Evidence from twin infanticide in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    38. Michael Becher & Nicolas Longuet Marx & Vincent Pons & Sylvain Brouard & Martial Foucault & Vincenzo Galasso & Eric Kerrouche & Sandra León Alfonso & Daniel Stegmueller, 2021. "Government Performance and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries during Covid-19," NBER Working Papers 29514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Santos Silva, J.M.C. & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2010. "On the existence of the maximum likelihood estimates in Poisson regression," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 310-312, May.
    40. Simone Bertoli & Guichard Lucas & Francesca Marchetta, 2020. "Turnout in the Municipal Elections of March 2020 and Excess Mortality during the COVID-19 Epidemic in France," Working Papers hal-03159025, HAL.
    41. Viktor Stojkoski & Zoran Utkovski & Petar Jolakoski & Dragan Tevdovski & Ljupco Kocarev, 2020. "Correlates of the country differences in the infection and mortality rates during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Bayesian model averaging," Papers 2004.07947, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    42. Rainer Winkelmann, 2008. "Econometric Analysis of Count Data," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-3-540-78389-3, December.
    43. Hausman, Jerry & Hall, Bronwyn H & Griliches, Zvi, 1984. "Econometric Models for Count Data with an Application to the Patents-R&D Relationship," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 909-938, July.
    44. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1095-1131.
    45. Murphy, Kevin M & Topel, Robert H, 2002. "Estimation and Inference in Two-Step Econometric Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 88-97, January.
    46. Linda Ryen & Mikael Svensson, 2015. "The Willingness to Pay for a Quality Adjusted Life Year: A Review of the Empirical Literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(10), pages 1289-1301, October.
    47. Alessandro Acquisti & Curtis Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2016. "The Economics of Privacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 442-492, June.
    48. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 681-700, May.
    49. Guilhem Cassan & Marc Sangnier, 2020. "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité... Contaminé? Estimating the impact of French municipal elections on COVID-19 spread in France," Working Papers halshs-02877917, HAL.
    50. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Applications to Poisson Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 701-720, May.
    51. David Card & Alan Krueger, 1993. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," Working Papers 694, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    52. Colleen Cunningham & Florian Ederer & Song Ma, 2021. "Killer Acquisitions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(3), pages 649-702.
    53. Browning, Edgar K & Johnson, William R, 1984. "The Trade-Off between Equality and Efficiency," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 175-203, April.
    54. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Brancati, Emanuele & Brianti, Marco & Schiantarelli, Fabio, 2020. "The Economic Effects of COVID-19 and Credit Constraints: Evidence from Italian Firms' Expectations and Plans," IZA Discussion Papers 13629, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    55. Amodio, Emanuele & Battisti, Michele & Kourtellos, Andros & Maggio, Giuseppe & Maida, Carmelo Massimo, 2022. "Schools opening and Covid-19 diffusion: Evidence from geolocalized microdata," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    56. Barrios, John M. & Benmelech, Efraim & Hochberg, Yael V. & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2021. "Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic☆," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    57. Per Engzell & Arun Frey & Mark D. Verhagen, 2021. "Learning loss due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(17), pages 2022376118-, April.
    58. Albouy, David, 2012. "Evaluating the efficiency and equity of federal fiscal equalization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 824-839.
    59. David M. Cutler & Sarah J. Reber, 1998. "Paying for Health Insurance: The Trade-Off between Competition and Adverse Selection," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 433-466.
    60. Eugenio Proto & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "COVID-19 and mental health deterioration by ethnicity and gender in the UK," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-16, January.
    61. Carozzi, Felipe & Provenzano, Sandro & Roth, Sefi, 2020. "Urban density and Covid-19," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108484, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    62. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "Control Function Methods in Applied Econometrics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 420-445.
    63. Ján Palguta & Levínský, René & Škoda, Samuel, 2021. "Do Elections Accelerate the COVID-19 Pandemic? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," GLO Discussion Paper Series 891, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    64. James Heckman, 1997. "Instrumental Variables: A Study of Implicit Behavioral Assumptions Used in Making Program Evaluations," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(3), pages 441-462.
    65. repec:elg:eechap:14395_1 is not listed on IDEAS
    66. Felipe Carozzi & Sandro Provenzano & Sefi Roth, 2020. "Urban density and Covid-19," CEP Discussion Papers dp1711, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    67. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2006. "Large Sample Properties of Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 235-267, January.
    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. Picchio, Matteo & Santolini, Raffaella, 2022. "The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on voter turnout," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Katharina Werner & Ludger Woessmann, 2021. "The Legacy of Covid-19 in Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 9358, CESifo.
    3. Usep Nugraha & Budy P. Resosudarmo & Rus’an Nasrudin, 2023. "Examining the impact of urban compactness on work and social life disruption during COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Jakarta, Indonesia," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-26, December.
    4. Kevin E. Staub & Rainer Winkelmann, 2013. "Consistent Estimation Of Zero‐Inflated Count Models," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 673-686, June.
    5. Koen Jochmans & Vincenzo Verardi, 2022. "Instrumental‐variable estimation of exponential‐regression models with two‐way fixed effects with an application to gravity equations," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(6), pages 1121-1137, September.
    6. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Hünermund, Paul & Moshgbar, Nima, 2020. "Public Procurement of Innovation: Evidence from a German Legislative Reform," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. Lattanzio, Salvatore, 2024. "Schools and the transmission of Sars-Cov-2: Evidence from Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    8. Emanuele Amodio & Michele Battisti & Antonio Francesco Gravina & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Giuseppe Maggio, 2023. "School‐age vaccination, school openings and Covid‐19 diffusion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1084-1100, May.
    9. Dionne, Georges & Gagne, Robert & Gagnon, Francois & Vanasse, Charles, 1997. "Debt, moral hazard and airline safety An empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 379-402, August.
    10. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    11. Ján Palguta & René Levínský & Samuel Škoda, 2022. "Do elections accelerate the COVID-19 pandemic?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 197-240, January.
    12. Marc Diederichs & Reyn van Ewijk & Ingo E. Isphording & Nico Pestel, 2022. "Schools under mandatory testing can mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 119(26), pages 2201724119-, June.
    13. Michael R. Baye & J. Rupert J. Gatti & Paul Kattuman & John Morgan, 2009. "Clicks, Discontinuities, and Firm Demand Online," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 935-975, December.
    14. Bach, Laurent & Guillouzouic, Arthur & Malgouyres, Clément, 2021. "Does holding elections during a Covid-19 pandemic put the lives of politicians at risk?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Fischer Kai, 2022. "Thinning out spectators: Did football matches contribute to the second COVID-19 wave in Germany?," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 23(4), pages 595-640, December.
    16. Wang, Jian & Hicks, Diana, 2015. "Scientific teams: Self-assembly, fluidness, and interdependence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 197-207.
    17. Guilhem Cassan & Marc Sangnier, 2022. "The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 963-988, July.
    18. Rizvi, Syed Muhammad All-e-Raza & Véganzonès-Varoudakis, Marie-Ange, 2023. "Institutional determinants of internal conflicts in fragile developing countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 910-934.
    19. Seonho Shin, 2022. "Evaluating the Effect of the Matching Grant Program for Refugees: An Observational Study Using Matching, Weighting, and the Mantel-Haenszel Test," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 103-133, March.
    20. Baye, Michael & GATTI, RUPERT J & Kattuman, Paul & Morgan, John, 2004. "Estimating Firm-Level Demand at a Price Comparison Site: Accounting for Shoppers and the Number of Competitors," Competition Policy Center, Working Paper Series qt923692d1, Competition Policy Center, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    control function; endogeneity; event-study; public health; civic capital; voting; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • 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:dp14658. 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.