According to research by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature and Kyushu University, the state of emergency issued with the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) has the effect of suppressing going out even though it is not legally binding. It was shown that there was.
In most parts of the world where COVID-19 infection has spread, penalties, or legally binding restraint policies, have been taken, while in Japan, non-legally binding self-restraint demands are an emergency. A declaration was issued.
Previous studies analyzing the effects of the state of emergency have shown that the declaration has had some effect, but it does not focus on the mechanism by which the declaration is effective.In addition, other factors such as public opinion (stigma, social stigma) and weather, which regard going out as antisocial behavior, are not taken into consideration as reasons for refraining from going out.Therefore, in this study, the emergency declaration is an outing behavior, considering the mechanism by which the emergency declaration suppressed the outing behavior and other factors that influence the decision making of the outing behavior such as stigma and weather. In order to know whether it can be said that the number was reduced, an analysis using a theoretical model and an empirical analysis using actual data were performed.
First, we constructed and analyzed a new theoretical model of self-restraint behavior that considers the psychological cost of stigma in addition to the risk of infection. It has been found that it is difficult to predict the magnitude of the outing suppression effect in advance because the number may increase and vice versa.
Next, in an empirical analysis using nationwide data, even under the control of other factors that affect the outing behavior, the outing behavior is higher than before the outing, both after the emergency declaration was issued and after it was lifted. It was found to be suppressed and the degree of suppression was higher during delivery.
In the future, the analysis will proceed in consideration of stigma for infected people, and policy effects such as benefits and basic income and institutional design will also be considered.
Paper information:[Economics of Disasters and Climate Change] COVID-19 with stigma: Theory and evidence from mobility data
