The Challenges of Assessing Government Economic Restrictions to Control the COVID-19 Pandemic
Creators: name: Dempere, Juan
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: 140208 Health Economics
subject: FOS: Economics and business
subject: 140219 Welfare Economics
subject: 140213 Public Economics- Public Choice
subject: 150203 Financial Institutions (incl. Banking)
subject: 140217 Transport Economics
subject: 220106 Medical Ethics
subject: FOS: Health sciences
subject: 110305 Emergency Medicine
subject: FOS: Clinical medicine
subject: 111706 Epidemiology
subject: Health Care
subject: 111709 Health Care Administration
subject: 111712 Health Promotion
subject: 111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified
subject: 150799 Transportation and Freight Services not elsewhere classified
subject: 180103 Administrative Law
subject: FOS: Law
subject: 220199 Applied Ethics not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Philosophy, ethics and religion
subject: 220102 Business Ethics
subject: 180105 Commercial and Contract Law
subject: 180106 Comparative Law
subject: 220305 Ethical Theory
subject: 180117 International Trade Law
subject: 180118 Labour Law
subject: 180119 Law and Society
subject: 220105 Legal Ethics
subject: 200104 Media Studies
subject: FOS: Media and communications
subject: 160505 Economic Development Policy
subject: FOS: Political science
subject: 160508 Health Policy
subject: 160205 Police Administration, Procedures and Practice
subject: 160599 Policy and Administration not elsewhere classified
subject: 160699 Political Science not elsewhere classified
subject: 160609 Political Theory and Political Philosophy
subject: 160509 Public Administration
subject: 160510 Public Policy
subject: 160805 Social Change
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: 160512 Social Policy

description: <strong>The Challenges of Assessing Government Economic Restrictions to Control the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> <strong>Abstract</strong>: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, most regimes worldwide adopted restrictive policies intended to minimize the adverse effects of the pandemic but also decreased most liberties enjoyed by their citizens. Such restrictive policies affected several freedom-related dimensions like business, labor, monetary, trade, investment, financial, and press freedoms. The time-inconsistency problem arises when achieving short-term goals jeopardize attaining long-term strategic objectives. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, the time-inconsistency problem may describe how and why policymakers engage in right and wrong decisions when trying to control the pandemic. Electoral accountability is a powerful political motivation for effectively managing the pandemic in democracies. However, once the initial public support for social restrictions disappeared, the electoral accountability logic worked in the opposite direction: most political leaders perceived that lifting pandemic restrictions early would increase their electoral chances. Democracies should struggle for an institutional and regulatory framework that insolate policymakers from political pressures when the time-inconsistency problem can result in a biased decision-making process. National government institutions with political insulation like that enjoyed by central banks should constitute an effective national crisis management system for western democracies.