Aggressive COVID‐19 lockdown policies: What factors significantly drove them across nations?

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the determinants of COVID-19 lockdown severity across nations. How significant were health, economic, political, institutional, and social factors in determining the severity of government responses to the pandemic? Using data on 162 nations from March 2020 to July 2022, results show that it was mainly controlling the spread of the pandemic that led nations to more serve measures against the pandemic. These efforts were tempered in nations that had larger governments and in those with better enforcement and the ones with more elderly. On the other hand, economic prosperity, political structures, macro-level uncertainties, trade openness, and corruption did not appreciably matter.