Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/237951 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
ESRI Working Paper No. 680
Publisher: 
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Dublin
Abstract: 
This paper examines the speed with which governments introduced lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We use data on daily confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths combined with information on containment measures available for 124 countries as well as a range of annual country-specific data. In terms of methodology, we estimate time-to-event models to analyse the speed of starting government containment measures and the speed with which such measures reached their highest level from the first confirmed COVID-19 case and the first COVID-19 related death. Our results indicate that governments in countries with a weaker health system capacity and in countries with a larger share of elderly populations were more likely to start lockdown measures faster. Smaller and more open economies were more likely to move faster to the highest level of containment measures.
Subjects: 
COVID-19 pandemic
government lockdown measures
speed of government interventions
health system capacity
time-to-event models
JEL: 
I18
H12
J18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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