Abstract
Social distancing is important to slow the community spread of infectious disease, but it creates enormous economic and social cost. Thus, it is important to quantify the benefits of different measures. We study the ban of mass gatherings, an intervention with comparably low cost. We exploit exogenous variation in the number of National Basketball Association and National Hockey League games, which arises due to the leagues' predetermined schedules, and the sudden suspension of the 2019–2020 seasons. We find that, among clusters of counties that are adjacent to sports venues, each additional mass gathering increased the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths by 10.3%.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 471-488 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Contemporary Economic Policy |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2023 |
Fields of science
- 303010 Health economics
- 502 Economics
- 502002 Labour economics
- 502009 Corporate finance
- 502021 Microeconomics
- 502042 Environmental economics
- 502047 Economic theory
- 504014 Gender studies
- 507016 Regional economy
- 405002 Agricultural economics
- 502001 Labour market policy
- 502003 Foreign trade
- 502010 Public finance
- 502012 Industrial management
- 502013 Industrial economics
- 502018 Macroeconomics
- 502020 Market research
- 502025 Econometrics
- 502027 Political economy
- 502039 Structural policy
- 502046 Economic policy
- 506004 European integration
JKU Focus areas
- Sustainable Development: Responsible Technologies and Management
