Democracies reacted slower than autocracies to the specter of the pandemic, and the most solidly democratic among them were particularly slow to react. We examine at which stages of the spread of the COVID governments introduced four measures that to varying degree abrogate liberal rights:...

We study the impact of short-term exposure to ambient air pollution on the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Germany. We combine data on county-by-day level on confirmed cases and deaths with information on local air quality and weather conditions and exploit short-term variation in the...

Faced with a pandemic, how does the government decide whether to shut down the economy or employ less economically-damaging mitigation measures, and what are the second-best distortions in this decision? We address this question from a positive (how does) rather than a normative (how should)...