Yves here. This study is useful because it tests and confirms some widespread intuitions: that more aggressive Covid containment measures reduce contagion levels, and that the degree of connection between high infection areas (which skew Republican) increases infection among them and also generates net spread to lower infection states.
By Umut Akovali, Post-doc Researcher, Department of Economics, Koç University and Kamil Yilmaz, Professor of Economics, Koç University. Originally published at VoxEU
Balancing the trade-off between strict public health measures and economic activity has been the key concern for governments since the Covid-19 outbreak. This column studies Covid-19 infections and their connectedness across US states. It finds that states with lax government policy and community mobility response had higher case growth trajectories and generated connectedness of Covid-19 cases to other states. Further, states with Republican governors tend to have higher connectedness