Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/259752 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics [ISSN:] 2235-6282 [Volume:] 156 [Issue:] 1 [Article No.:] 10 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 1-19
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
We assess the impact of the timing of lockdown measures implemented in Germany and Switzerland on cumulative COVID-19-related hospitalization and death rates. Our analysis exploits the fact that the epidemic was more advanced in some regions than in others when certain lockdown measures came into force, based on measuring health outcomes relative to the region-specific start of the epidemic and comparing outcomes across regions with earlier and later start dates. When estimating the effect of the relative timing of measures, we control for regional characteristics and initial epidemic trends by linear regression (Germany and Switzerland), doubly robust estimation (Germany), or synthetic controls (Switzerland). We find for both countries that a relatively later exposure to the measures entails higher cumulative hospitalization and death rates on region-specific days after the outbreak of the epidemic, suggesting that an earlier imposition of measures is more effective than a later one. For Germany, we further evaluate curfews (as introduced in a subset of states) based on cross-regional variation. We do not find any effects of curfews on top of the federally imposed contact restriction that banned groups of more than 2 individuals.
Subjects: 
COVID-19
Pandemic
Social distancing
Lockdown
Treatment effect
Synthetic control
JEL: 
I18
I12
H12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.