The spread of COVID-19 led countries around the world to adopt lockdown measures of varying stringency, with the purpose of restricting the movement of people. However, the effectiveness of these measures on mobility has been markedly different. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we analyse the effectiveness of movement restrictions across different countries. We disentangle the role of regulation (stringency measures) from the role of people's knowledge about the spread of COVID-19. We proxy COVID-19 knowledge by using Google Trends data on the term “Covid”. We find that lockdown measures have a higher impact on mobility the more people learn about COVID-19. This finding is driven by countries with low levels of trust in institutions and low levels of education.

Pandemic knowledge and regulation effectiveness: Evidence from COVID-19

Riccardo Secomandi
Ultimo
Writing – Review & Editing
;
Luisa Loiacono
Primo
Writing – Review & Editing
;
Leonzio Rizzo
Penultimo
Writing – Review & Editing
2022

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 led countries around the world to adopt lockdown measures of varying stringency, with the purpose of restricting the movement of people. However, the effectiveness of these measures on mobility has been markedly different. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we analyse the effectiveness of movement restrictions across different countries. We disentangle the role of regulation (stringency measures) from the role of people's knowledge about the spread of COVID-19. We proxy COVID-19 knowledge by using Google Trends data on the term “Covid”. We find that lockdown measures have a higher impact on mobility the more people learn about COVID-19. This finding is driven by countries with low levels of trust in institutions and low levels of education.
2022
Secomandi, Riccardo; Loiacono, Luisa; Puglisi, Riccardo; Rizzo, Leonzio
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11392/2477936
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