Estimating the Effect of State-Level Stay-at-Home Orders

Abstract

As fear of COVID-19 spread in early 2020, individuals began reducing their activity outside the home and governments adopted policies to slow the spread. With this in mind, I estimate the average effect of state-level stay-at-home orders on Google Mobility data while controlling for changes in the perceived risk of the pandemic over time. In general, I find that state-level stay-at-home orders appear to account for little of the observed change in activity.

Keywords: coronavirus, COVID-19, disease, stay-at-home order, pandemic, virus

JEL Classification: E73, H75, E77, I12, I18