Quantifying Factors that Affected Governors’ Issuance of Stay-at-Home Orders in Response to COVID-19

Abstract

Governors’ responses to the severe threats to public health posed by COVID-19 have not been uniform. We are among the first to provide empirical analyses to document to what extent stay at home orders or shelter in place orders were issued differently based on political, business and individual-level factors. Using a proportional hazards model and accounting for a variety of differences between states including health risks, our research examines three categories of factors that may bias crisis response decisions. Our results inform our understanding of the underlying factors that influence how crisis policy is determined and acted upon, which could be critical for guiding strategies to address ongoing societal grand challenges faced by US executive leaders, such as when and how to “reopen for business.”

Keywords: COVID-19, Pandemic, Crisis, Governors, Stay at Home Orders, Social Distancing, Strategy, Leadership, Decision-Making

JEL Classification: H00, H7, H70, H84, I18, I00, L00, M00, M12, P16, Z18