Search results

IMPORTANCE: Governments have introduced non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the pandemic outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). While NPIs aim at preventing fatalities related to COVID-19, the previous literature on their efficacy has focused on infections and on data of the first half of 2020. Still, findings of early NPI studies may be subject to underreporting and missing timeliness of reporting of cases. Moreover, the low variation in treatment timing during the first wave makes identification of robust treatment effects difficult. OBJECTIVE: We enhance the literature on the effectiveness of NPIs with respect to the period, the number of countries, and the analytical approach. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: To circumvent problems of reporting and treatment variation, we analyse data on daily confirmed COVID-19-related deaths per capita from Our World in Data, and on 10 different NPIs from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) for 169 countries from 1st July 2020 to 1st September 2021. To identify the causal effects of introducing NPIs on COVID-19-related fatalities, we apply the generalized synthetic control (GSC) method to each NPI, while controlling for the remaining NPIs, weather conditions, vaccinations, and NPI-residualized COVID-19 cases. This mitigates the influence of selection into treatment and allows to model flexible post-treatment trajectories. RESULTS: We do not find substantial and consistent COVID-19-related fatality-reducing effects of any NPI under investigation. We see a tentative change in the trend of COVID-19-related deaths around 30 days after strict stay-at-home rules and to a slighter extent after workplace closings have been implemented. As a proof of concept, our model is able to identify a fatality-reducing effect of COVID-19 vaccinations. Furthermore, our results are robust with respect to various crucial sensitivity checks. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that many implemented NPIs may not have exerted a significant ...

Importance Governments have introduced non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the pandemic outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). While NPIs aim at preventing fatalities related to COVID-19, the previous literature on their efficacy has focused on infections and on data of the first half of 2020. Still, findings of early NPI studies may be subject to underreporting and missing timeliness of reporting of cases. Moreover, the low variation in treatment timing during the first wave makes identification of robust treatment effects difficult. Objective We enhance the literature on the effectiveness of NPIs with respect to the period, the number of countries, and the analytical approach. Design Setting and Participants To circumvent problems of reporting and treatment variation, we analyse data on daily confirmed COVID-19-related deaths per capita from Our World in Data, and on 10 different NPIs from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) for 169 countries from 1st July 2020 to 1st September 2021. To identify the causal effects of introducing NPIs on COVID-19-related fatalities, we apply the generalized synthetic control (GSC) method to each NPI, while controlling for the remaining NPIs, weather conditions, vaccinations, and NPI-residualized COVID-19 cases. This mitigates the influence of selection into treatment and allows to model flexible post-treatment trajectories. Results We do not find substantial and consistent COVID-19-related fatality-reducing effects of any NPI under investigation. We see a tentative change in the trend of COVID-19-related deaths around 30 days after strict stay-at-home rules and to a slighter extent after workplace closings have been implemented. As a proof of concept, our model is able to identify a fatality-reducing effect of COVID-19 vaccinations. Furthermore, our results are robust with respect to various crucial sensitivity checks. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that many implemented NPIs may not have exerted a significant COVID-19-related fatality-reducing effect. However, NPIs might have contributed to mitigate COVID-19-related fatalities by preventing exponential growth in deaths. Moreover, vaccinations were effective in reducing COVID-19-related deaths.

In this paper, we try to accomplish four goals: First, we replicate the original Asch experiment with five confederates and one naïve subject in each group (N = 210). Second, in a randomized trial we incentivize the decisions in the line experiment and demonstrate that monetary incentives lower the error rate, but that social influence is still at work. Third, we confront subjects with different political statements and show that the power of social influence can be generalized to matters of political opinion. Finally, we investigate whether intelligence, self-esteem, the need for social approval, and the Big Five are related to the susceptibility of providing conforming answers. We find an error rate of 33% for the standard length-of-line experiment which replicates the original findings by Asch (1951, 1955, 1956). Furthermore, in the incentivized condition the error rate decreases to 25%. For political opinions we find a conformity rate of 38%. However, besides openness, none of the investigated personality traits are convincingly related to the susceptibility of group pressure.

Much research has demonstrated that videos can function as primers or nudges that influence attitudes and behaviors. Studies to date suggest that this includes influence over individual pro-environmental attitudes. However, the existing evidence all stems from samples comprised of university students. In this paper, we describe the results of a randomized online experiment in a sample of 468 climate skeptics. We presented 3-min nature documentary videos that highlighted either the beauty of nature, the endangerment of nature by humans, or a mixture of both. The results suggest that the mixed stimulus video, which shows first the beauty of nature and then its endangerment by humans does indeed increase environmental concern by almost half a standard deviation. However, none of the video treatments increased donations to pro-environmental organizations. Still, the results suggest that nudging by video also works in samples of climate skeptics, which demonstrates the external validity of former findings.

Social desirability is a major problem in survey research. One way of handling the problem is to measure social desirability and to incorporate it into the statistical analysis. There are different techniques of measuring social desirability. We investigate and compare the performance of the well-known Crowne-Marlowe scale with the less common use of phantom questions. Up to now, there is only one study, which tests the comparative performance of both instruments (Randall & Fernandes 1991). In this paper we replicate the test and introduce a few innovations. In difference to the former study, we compare two short versions of the Crowne-Marlowe scale, the 10-items version as suggested by Clancy and Gove (1974) and a 10-items version suggested by Stocké (2014). First, we test both scales with respect to their internal consistency. Second, we investigate which of the two versions has the strongest impact on different sensitive behaviors (alcohol consumption, shoplifting, law compliance, and reported life satisfaction). Third, we construct 20 phantom questions, 10 with fictitious answering categories that can hardly be confused with existing things, and 10 where the fictitious categories resemble existing persons or sites. We then investigate whether the phantom questions pick up social desirability better than the Crowne-Marlowe scale. The study was conducted online with 365 student subjects. Our results indicate that the short version of the Crowne-Marlowe scale suggested by Clancy and Gove (1974) performs best. But none of our phantom questions or any combination of them is able to pick up social desirability. Instead over-claiming is associated with a lack of knowledge.

Carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of anthropogenic climate change and play a central role in discussions on climate change mitigation. Previous research has demonstrated that national carbon dioxide emissions are driven mainly by population size and wealth. However, the variation in per capita emissions of nations with similar standards of living and similar population is huge. In this paper we investigate the drivers of national per capita carbon dioxide emissions over and above already known factors. In particular, we extend previous research by taking into account countries' shares of imports and exports, indicators of political interventions such as energy prices, and the use of renewable energy sources. Moreover, we also examine whether international commitments, such as the ones made by many nations at climate summits of the United Nations, matter. We use country-level data from 1980 to 2014 and estimate fixed effects panel regression models. In accordance with former research we find no environmental Kuznets curve with respect to carbon dioxide per capita emission levels. However, higher energy prices and the availability of alternative energy sources both reduce emissions. Furthermore, voluntary international environmental commitments also motivate countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.