Effectiveness of government policies in response to the first COVID-19 outbreak

This paper assesses the quantitative impact of government interventions on deaths related to the first COVID-19 outbreak. Using daily data for 32 countries and relying on the stringency of the conducted policies, we find that the greater the strength of government interventions at an early stage, the more effective these are in slowing down or reversing the growth rate of deaths. School closures have a significant impact on reducing the growth rate of deaths, which is less powerful compared to the case where a number of policy interventions are combined together. These results can be informative for governments in responding to future pandemics.

Unemployment claims during COVID-19 and economic support measures in the U.S.

Governments want to know how effective COVID-19 anti-contagion policies and implemented economic stimulus measures have been to plan their short-run interventions. We condition on the state of the pandemic to assess the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions and economic stimulus policies on the excess unemployment insurance claims in the United States. We focus on weekly data between February 2020 and January 2021 and motivate our analysis by the theoretical framework of the second-wave SIR-macro type models to build a panel Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) specification. Non-pharmaceutical interventions become effective immediately and impact the labor market negatively. Economic stimulus takes about a month to turn effective and only partially eases the economic welfare losses. Health-related restrictive measures are primarily driven by the state of the pandemic. Economic support policies depend predominantly on the reaction of the labor market rather than the severity of the pandemic itself.

Effectiveness of government policies in response to the first COVID-19 outbreak.

This paper assesses the quantitative impact of government interventions on deaths related to the first COVID-19 outbreak. Using daily data for 32 countries and relying on the stringency of the conducted policies, we find that the greater the strength of government interventions at an early stage, the more effective these are in slowing down or reversing the growth rate of deaths. School closures have a significant impact on reducing the growth rate of deaths, which is less powerful compared to the case where a number of policy interventions are combined together. These results can be informative for governments in responding to future pandemics.