Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223752 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13310
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We explore the role of social capital in the spread of the recent Covid-19 pandemic in independent analyses for Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Exploiting within-country variation, we show that a one standard deviation increase in social capital leads to 12% and 32% fewer Covid-19 cases per capita accumulated from mid-March until mid-May. Using Italy as a case study, we find that high-social-capital areas exhibit lower excess mortality and a decline in mobility. Our results have important implications for the design of local containment policies in future waves of the pandemic.
Subjects: 
COVID-19
social capital
collective action
health costs
Europe
JEL: 
D04
A13
D91
H11
H12
I10
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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