活动内容
Topic
Old Ideology, Novel
Virus – How Freedom Affects the Fight
against COVID-19
Speaker
Zhen Li
Professor, National University
of Singapore
Abstract
People's demand for
freedom potentially impedes the containment of COVID-19. We demonstrate that
COVID-19 displays a spatial discontinuity along the former East-West German
border and virus-fighting policies are more effective in former pro-state East
German districts. In an international setting using the number of Nobel-Prize
winners as an instrument, we show that democracy, individualism and economic
affluence aggravate the severity of COVID-19 and they reduce the effectiveness
of social distancing and mobility restriction policies. We conclude that a
greater reluctance among people to heed virus-fighting policies and an
unbridled demand for freedom impose a negative health externality during a pandemic.
