Countries Imitated COVID Tightening—But Not Reopenings

Why This Matters

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide scrambled to adopt or lift restrictions with limited information about the virus and policy consequences. Understanding how and when governments copied each other helps explain the timing and coordination of costly public-health measures—and whether some restrictions stayed in place longer than necessary.

What Curini, Daniele, and Stanig Ask

Luigi Curini, Gianmarco Daniele, and Piero Stanig investigate whether non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)—like business closures, gathering limits, and stay-at-home orders—spread across countries, and whether diffusion was symmetric when policies were tightened versus relaxed. The study focuses on OECD countries between January 2020 and March 2022 and links policy choices to neighboring countries' recent actions and to epidemic trends.

How They Studied It

The authors combine daily data on a country-level policy stringency index with measures of epidemic evolution for OECD countries over the pandemic period. They use spatial econometric methods to test whether a country’s stringency responds to the stringency observed in neighboring countries in preceding days, while accounting for domestic epidemic conditions. The analysis also examines heterogeneity by countries’ institutional quality.

What They Found

• A clear, systematic relationship emerges between a country’s stringency index and the recent measures taken by its neighbors: policymakers tended to follow neighbors’ moves.
• This diffusion is asymmetric: robust imitation occurs when neighbors escalate stringency, but there is no discernible diffusion when neighbors relax measures.
• The asymmetric dynamics are stronger in countries with lower institutional quality, suggesting institutional capacity conditions how much governments rely on others’ actions.
• Because escalation spread but relaxation did not, some policy repeals may have been suboptimally delayed.

Policy Implications

These findings imply that during fast-moving crises governments are more likely to copy precautionary tightening than reopening decisions—especially where institutions are weaker—potentially prolonging restrictive measures. The results matter for crafting communication, coordination, and capacity-building strategies aimed at improving timely, evidence-based responses in future pandemics.