The links between COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and non-pharmaceutical interventions.

The information set from which individuals make their decision on vaccination includes signals from trusted agents, such as governments, community leaders and the media. By implementing restrictions, or by relaxing them, governments can provide a signal about the underlying risk of the pandemic and indirectly affect vaccination take-up. Rather than focusing on measures specifically designed to increase vaccine acceptance, this paper studies how governments' non-pharmaceutical policy responses to the pandemic can modify the degree of preventive health behavior, including vaccination. To do so, we use repeated waves of a global survey on COVID-19 Beliefs, Behaviors and Norms covering 18 countries from October 2020 to March 2021. Controlling for the usual determinants, we explore how individuals' willingness to get vaccinated is affected by changes in government restriction measures (as measured by the Oxford Stringency Index). This relationship is mediated by individual characteristics, social norms (social pressure to conform with what most people do), and trust in government institutions. Our results point to a complex picture as the implementation of restrictions is associated with increased acceptance in some contexts and decreased acceptance in others. The stringency of government restrictions has significant positive correlations with vaccine acceptance in contexts of weak social norms of vaccine acceptance and lower trust in government. In countries or communities with tighter social norms and high trust in health authorities, vaccine acceptance is high but less sensitive to changes in policies. These results suggest that the effect of government policy stringency is stronger among individuals who report lower trust and weaker social norms of vaccine acceptance.

Opening-Up Trajectories and Economic Recovery: Lessons after the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This article analyses the reopening process of countries in Europe and Central Asia after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides evidence on the effects of different reopening trajectories and their timing and speed on economic recovery. The analysis indicates that countries that adopted a gradual, staged reopening experienced stronger economic recovery compared with the countries that rushed into lifting the restrictive measures before the pandemic was under control. Postponing lifting the restrictions until after the pandemic's peak was reached has a positive impact on economic activity. Governance also matters: a higher level of trust in government is associated with increased economic activity among countries that carried out a gradual reopening process. There is also suggestive evidence that providing people objective data on the progress of the pandemic may speed up the recovery process. (JEL codes: D14, E21, and G51).

The sooner, the better: The economic impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract This paper estimates the economic impact of the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented by countries in Europe and Central Asia during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis relies on daily electricity consumption, nitrogen dioxide emission and mobility records to trace the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic and calibrate these measures to estimate the magnitude of the economic impact. To address the potential endogeneity in the introduction of NPIs, we instrument their stringency by the extent of a country's social ties to China. The results suggest that the NPIs led to a decline of about 10% in economic activity across the region. On average, countries that implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions in the early stages of the pandemic appear to have better short-term economic outcomes and lower cumulative mortality, compared with countries that imposed non-pharmaceutical interventions during the later stages of the pandemic. Moreover, there is evidence that COVID-19 mortality at the peak of the local outbreak has been lower in countries that acted earlier. In this sense, the results suggest that the sooner non-pharmaceutical interventions are implemented, the better are the economic and health outcomes.