Pandemic lockdowns are just one of many instruments used to fight the coronavirus. But they are important and have a clearly political character. Part I of this article highlights some of the parallels existing between pandemics and politics, both from a national and an international...

We investigate how politico-economic factors shaped government responses to the spread of COVID-19. Our simple framework uses epidemiological, economic and politico-economic arguments. Confronting the theory with US state level data we find strong evidence for partisanship even when we control...