DP14866 Social capital and the spread of Covid-19: Insights from European countries
Author(s): | Alina Bartscher, Sebastian Seitz, Sebastian Siegloch, Michaela Slotwinski, Nils Wehrhöfer |
Publication Date: | June 2020 |
Date Revised: | August 2020 |
Keyword(s): | collective action, COVID-19, Europe, health costs, social capital |
JEL(s): | A13, D04, D91, H11, H12, I10, I18 |
Programme Areas: | Labour Economics, Public Economics |
Link to this Page: | cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14866 |
We explore the role of social capital in the first wave of the recent Covid-19 pandemic in independent analyses for Austria, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Exploiting within-country variation, we show that a one standard deviation increase in social capital leads to between 14% and 40% fewer Covid-19 cases per capita accumulated from mid-March until end of June, as well as between 7% and 16% fewer excess deaths per capita. Our results have important implications for the design of local containment policies in possible future waves of the pandemic.