A cure worse than the disease? Exploring the health-economy trade-off during COVID-19

Abstract

Nationwide lockdowns implemented by governments to confront the COVID-19 pandemic came at a high economic price. The article investigates citizens' evaluation of the trade-off between public health measures and their economic consequences. Using a vignette experiment conducted in June 2020 on 7,500 respondents in seven European countries the article tests whether perceived threats of the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic affect citizens' preferences for strict or mild lockdown measures. Findings show that European citizens tend to prefer strict measures protecting public health despite their damage to the economy. Even individuals more concerned about the pandemic' s economic impact do not prefer milder restrictions. Sociodemographic factors only indirectly affect public preferences, through perceived threats. Additionally, findings show that trust in experts and political orientations matter. These results resonate with previous research showing that public opinion in hard times is likely to be guided by risk perceptions and subjective attitudes. KEYWORD COVID-19; policy preferences; public opinion; risk perceptions; survey experimentThe COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented challenge to decision making in contemporary representative democracies. Handling the pandemic is a collective action problem as the spread of the virus could only be contained if individuals follow strict hygiene rules and physical distancing. Meanwhile, given that coordination among the entire populations is challenging, if not impossible, this crisis also represents a democratic dilemma because national governments had to enforce 'war-style' confinement measures that harshly restricted civil liberties and damaged national economies.In the early weeks of the pandemic, the public in various countries was highly supportive of the social confinement measures implemented by their

Civic and Political Engagement during the Multifaceted COVID‐19 Crisis

“…They also introduced immediate relief funds and various employment schemes to help the most economically affected sectors and individuals. Preliminary studies in political science explore how governments fare in solving this dilemma (e.g., Naumann et al 2020; Petherick et al 2020) or how citizens evaluate policy responses to this double health and economic threat posed by the pandemic (e.g., Bol et al 2020; Esaiasson et al 2020; Merkley 2020; Oana et al 2021; Schraff 2020). This research note takes a more ‘bottom‐up’ perspective and shifts the focus from government action to civil society and citizens’ involvement (for related case studies, see Carlsen et al 2020; Koos and Bertogg 2020; Zajak et al 2020).…”

Moral Preferences over Taboo Trade-offs in the Time of Coronavirus

“…These problems have been extensively studied with hypothetical scenarios -see review in ( 16)and sometimes in the field. The global characterization of preferences complements the studies that investigate a trade-off involving more dimensions related to the pandemic, but only locally (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) and those that estimate the individual welfare costs or economic concerns related to containment measures (23,24). To our knowledge, our project is the first to propose a direct estimation of moral preferences over the full space of reasonable outcomes.…”

Right-Wing Populism and the Trade-Off Between Health and the Economy During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparison Between Western Europe and the United States

“…However, some studies do provide some material to help us build our argument. Regarding the trade-off between economy and health, a comparative survey among seven West European countries conducted in June 2020 (Oana, Pellegata and Wang, 2021) suggests that those who are not afraid of the COVID-19 crisis having a negative impact on their personal health and the health conditions of society in general tend to oppose strict lockdown policies, while people worried about personal and societal economic aspects tend to be in favor of strict lockdowns. By contrast, citizens traditionally more in favor of the state playing a proactive role in supporting its citizens' wellbeing in the name of solidarity and tradition and have had easier access to economic relief during the COVID-19 crisis would be more willing to accept strict health measures than would be the case with right-wing voters.…”