ABSTRACT
Social distancing is important to slow the community spread of infectious disease, but it creates enormous economic and social cost. Thus, it is important to quantify the benefits of different measures. We study the ban of mass gatherings, an intervention with comparably low cost. We exploit exogenous variation in the number of National Basketball Association and National Hockey League games, which arises due to the leagues' predetermined schedules, and the sudden suspension of the 2019–2020 seasons. We find that, among clusters of counties that are adjacent to sports venues, each additional mass gathering increased the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths by 10.3%. © 2023 The Authors. Contemporary Economic Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Western Economic Association International.
ABSTRACT
We study the sustainability of the Austrian healthcare system. In the first part of the chapter, we provide background on the state of the Austrian healthcare sector. In the second part, we review major healthcare interventions that recently took place in Austria, discussing their effectiveness and implications for sustainability. In the third part, we address five public health challenges that are particularly interesting in the Austrian context: ageing, risky health behaviours, healthcare access in rural areas, refugees and infectious disease epidemics. © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited.