Outbreak

Pathology

Sociology

Virology

Economics

Social distance

Disease

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Distancing

Social science

Development economics

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Social capital

Medicine

Biology

Pandemic

Journal of Public Economics

• Civic capital is associated with higher social distancing compliance during COVID-19. • This holds across US counties, a survey of US individuals, and European regions. • The effect is in addition to any impact of political ideology, age, or education. • In high civic capital areas social distancing persisted after the mandate was lifted. Using mobile phone and survey data, we show that during the early phases of COVID-19, voluntary social distancing was greater in areas with higher civic capital and amongst individuals exhibiting a higher sense of civic duty. This effect is robust to including controls for political ideology, income, age, education, and other local-level characteristics. This result is present for U.S. individuals and U.S. counties as well as European regions. Moreover, we show that after U.S. states began re-opening, high civic capital counties maintained a more sustained level of social distancing, while low civic capital counties did not. Finally, we show that U.S. individuals report a higher tendency to use protective face masks in high civic capital counties. Our evidence points to the importance of considering the level of civic capital in designing public policies not only in response to pandemics, but also more generally.

Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic☆