https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/223647/1/dp13205.pdf

Trust and Compliance to Public Health Policies in Times of COVID-19

This chapter reviews the recent debate about the role of social capital in economics. We argue that all the difficulties this concept has encountered in economics are due to a vague and excessively broad definition. For this reason, we restrict social capital to the set of values and beliefs that help cooperation - which for clarity we label civic capital. We argue that this definition differentiates social capital from human capital and satisfies the properties of the standard notion of capital. We then argue that civic capital can explain why differences in economic performance persist over centuries and discuss how the effect of civic capital can be distinguished empirically from other variables that affect economic performance and its persistence, including institutions and geography.

Civic Capital as the Missing Link

Lockdown timing and efficacy in controlling COVID-19 using mobile phone tracking.

The goal of this piece is to survey the developing and rapidly growing literature on the economic consequences of COVID-19 and the governmental responses, and to synthetize the insights emerging from a very large number of studies. This survey: (i) provides an overview of the data sets and the techniques employed to measure social distancing and COVID-19 cases and deaths; (ii) reviews the literature on the determinants of compliance with and the effectiveness of social distancing; (iii) the macroeconomic and financial impacts, including the modelling of plausible mechanisms; (iv) summarizes the literature on the socio-economic consequences of COVID-19, focusing on those aspects related to labor, health, gender, discrimination, and the environment, and v) summarizes the literature on public policy responses.

A Literature Review of the Economics of COVID-19

We discuss and review literature on the macroeconomic effects of epidemics and pandemics since the late 20th century. First, we cover the role of health in driving economic growth and well-being and discuss standard frameworks for assessing the economic burden of infectious diseases. Second, we sketch a general theoretical framework to evaluate the tradeoffs policymakers must consider when addressing infectious diseases and their macroeconomic repercussions. In so doing, we emphasize the dependence of economic consequences on (i) disease characteristics; (ii) inequalities among individuals in terms of susceptibility, preferences, and income; and (iii) cross-country heterogeneities in terms of their institutional and macroeconomic environments. Third, we study pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical policies aimed at mitigating and preventing infectious diseases and their macroeconomic repercussions. Fourth, we discuss the health toll and economic impacts of five infectious 	diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19. Although major epidemics and pandemics can take an enormous human toll and impose a staggering economic burden, early and targeted health and economic policy interventions can often mitigate both to a substantial degree.

/pdf/modern-infectious-diseases-macroeconomic-impacts-and-policy-5cwqcgibqp.pdf

Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses

We study the 2011 Austrian Pay Transparency Law, which requires firms above a size threshold to publish internal reports on the gender pay gap. Using an event-study design, we show that the policy had no discernible effects on male and female wages, thus leaving the gender wage gap unchanged. The effects are precisely estimated and we rule out that the policy narrowed the gender wage gap by more than 0.4 p.p.. Moreover, we do not find evidence for wage compression within establishments. We discuss several possible reasons why the reform did not reduce the gender wage gap.

Does Pay Transparency Affect the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence From Austria

Public disability insurance (DI) programs in many countries face pressure to reduce their generosity in order to remain sustainable. In this paper, we investigate the welfare effects of giving a larger role to private insurance markets in the face of public DI cuts. Exploiting a unique reform that abolished one part of the German public DI system for younger workers, we find that despite significant crowding-in effects, overall private DI take-up remains modest. We do not find any evidence of adverse selection on unpriced risk. On the contrary, private DI tends to be concentrated among high-income, high-education and low-risk individuals. Using a revealed preferences approach, we estimate individual DI valuations, a key input for welfare calculations. We find that observed willingness-to-pay of many individuals is low, such that providing DI partly via a private insurance market with choice improves welfare. However, we show that distributional concerns as well as individual risk misperceptions can provide grounds for justifying a full public DI mandate. JEL codes: H55, G22, G52

/pdf/privatizing-disability-insurance-2lq6e8yd.pdf

Privatizing Disability Insurance

Estimating the Moral Hazard Cost of Private Disability Insurance and its Welfare Consequences

Public disability insurance (DI) programs in many countries face pressure to reduce their generosity in order to remain sustainable. In this paper, we investigate the welfare effects of giving a larger role to private insurance markets in the face of public DI cuts. Exploiting a unique reform that abolished one part of the German public DI system for younger cohorts, we find that despite significant crowding-in effects, overall private DI take-up remains modest. Private DI tends to be concentrated among high-income, high-education and low-risk individuals. We do not find any evidence of adverse selection on unpriced risk. Finally, we estimate individual insurance valuations via a revealed preferences approach, a key input for welfare calculations. We find that observed willingness-to-pay of many individuals is low, such that providing coverage partly via a private DI market improves welfare. However, we show that distributional concerns as well as individual risk misperceptions can provide grounds for justifying a full public DI mandate. JEL codes: H55, G22, G52

Sebastian Seitz

Papers

Does Pay Transparency Affect the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence From Austria

Privatizing Disability Insurance

Estimating the Moral Hazard Cost of Private Disability Insurance and its Welfare Consequences

Privatizing Disability Insurance Privatizing Disability Insurance∗

Pay Transparency, Workplace Norms, and Gender Pay Gap: Early Evidence from Germany