A0884
Title: Cross-national comparisons of COVID-19 lockdown effectiveness: The spatial functional data analysis approach
Authors: Pipat Wongsa-art - Cardiff University (United Kingdom) [presenting]
Abstract: Although studying the cross-national effectiveness of lockdown strategies in reducing the transmission of COVID-19 is necessary and extremely important, it is far from being straightforward. An endogeneity of policy choices and reverse causality are obvious examples of obstructions that may impede progress. The purpose is to transform the problem into analyzing spatially dependent discrete longitudinal data of COVID-19 cases and deaths, which are often used by governments as the basis for making policy decisions. In the context of the analysis, the spatial dependence is extended beyond the concept of physical contiguity of neighborhoods, which is often the main focus in spatial econometrics, to COVID-19 response contiguity. Furthermore, a novel functional data analysis approach is suggested that can help to disentangle a component of the data series of COVID-19 cases/deaths, which is due to the COVID-19 response contiguity, from another component that is country-specific. The usefulness of the latter resides in its ability to capture information about the effectiveness of government policies. The method is used to perform cross-national comparisons of COVID-19 lockdown effectiveness in 36 OECD countries and provide a number of insights that are not yet available in the literature.
