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How Effective Are Social Distancing Policies? Evidence on the Fight against Covid-19 from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Ulrich Glogowsky
  • Emanuel Hansen
  • Simeon Schächtele
Abstract
To fight the spread of Covid-19, many countries implemented unprecedented social distancing policies. This is the first paper that uses an event-study approach to examine the effects of the German social distancing policies on (a) individual behavior and (b) the spread of the epidemic. Combining administrative health data and cell phone data, we find that the policies, first, heavily reduced citizens’ mobility and, second, strongly contained the epidemic. In comparison to a benchmark without social distancing, within three weeks, the policies avoided 84% of the potential Covid-19 cases (point estimate: 499.3K) and 66% of the potential fatalities (5.4K).

Suggested Citation

  • Ulrich Glogowsky & Emanuel Hansen & Simeon Schächtele, 2020. "How Effective Are Social Distancing Policies? Evidence on the Fight against Covid-19 from Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 8361, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8361
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    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8361.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Steffen Juranek & Floris Zoutman, 2020. "The Effect of Social Distancing Measures on the Demand for Intensive Care: Evidence on Covid-19 in Scandinavia," CESifo Working Paper Series 8262, CESifo.
    2. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Juranek, Steffen & Zoutman, Floris T., 2020. "The Effect of Social Distancing Measures on Intensive Care Occupancy: Evidence on COVID-19 in Scandinavia," Discussion Papers 2020/2, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    4. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Jakob Egholt Søgaard, 2019. "Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 181-209, October.
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    6. Pence Karen M., 2006. "The Role of Wealth Transformations: An Application to Estimating the Effect of Tax Incentives on Saving," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-26, July.
    7. Dhaval Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Joseph J. Sabia, 2021. "When Do Shelter‐In‐Place Orders Fight Covid‐19 Best? Policy Heterogeneity Across States And Adoption Time," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 29-52, January.
    8. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2019. "On Event Study Designs and Distributed-Lag Models: Equivalence, Generalization and Practical Implications," CESifo Working Paper Series 7481, CESifo.
    9. Donsimoni Jean Roch & Glawion René & Plachter Bodo & Wälde Klaus, 2020. "Projecting the spread of COVID-19 for Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 181-216, June.
    10. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    11. Michael Greenstone & Vishan Nigam, 2020. "Does Social Distancing Matter?," Working Papers 2020-26, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
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    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Distancing and Lockdown > Effect on Health

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    Cited by:

    1. Hinterlang, Natascha & Moyen, Stephane & Röhe, Oke & Stähler, Nikolai, 2023. "Gauging the effects of the German COVID-19 fiscal stimulus package," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    2. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Michael Berlemann & Erik Haustein, 2020. "Right and Yet Wrong: A Spatio-Temporal Evaluation of Germany's Covid-19 Containment Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 8446, CESifo.
    4. Steffen Juranek & Jörg Paetzold & Hannes Winner & Floris Zoutman, 2020. "Labor Market Effects of Covid-19 in Sweden and Its Neighbors: Evidence from Novel Administrative Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 8473, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Covid-19; social distancing policies; policy evaluation; mobility behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

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