School of Economics and Management, Huangshan University, Huangshan 245021, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 May 30;19(11):6679. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19116679.
Independent of different national conditions, an indisputable fact is that the worldwide governments should play a role in fighting the ongoing COVID-19. To make clear the determinants of government response to tackle COVID-19, I investigate the impact of governance quality. To do so, I newly create an overall governance index based on six dimensions of Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) from the World Bank to proxy governance quality. I regress the overall governance index with controls on the stringency index from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker database. Using pooled and panel data models with individual and time fixed effects, I find that the relationship between governance quality and policy stringency for 339 days across 163 countries is significantly nonmonotonic. Countries with middle governance quality select a high level of policy stringency in contrast to those with high and low governance quality. I also find that policy stringency significantly increases when daily new cases increase. The findings highlight the role of governance quality in deciding the stringency level of public health policies.
独立于不同的国情，一个无可争议的事实是，世界各国政府都应该在抗击新冠肺炎疫情中发挥作用。为了明确政府应对 COVID-19 的决定因素，我研究了治理质量的影响。为此，我根据世界银行的全球治理指标（WGI）的六个维度，新创建了一个整体治理指数来代表治理质量。我用牛津 COVID-19 政府反应追踪器数据库中的严格指数进行控制，将整体治理指数进行回归。使用个体和时间固定效应的 pooled 和 panel 数据模型，我发现 163 个国家 339 天的治理质量与政策严格程度之间的关系是非单调的。治理质量中等的国家选择了高水平的政策严格程度，而治理质量高和低的国家则选择了低水平的政策严格程度。我还发现，当每日新增病例增加时，政策严格程度显著增加。这些发现强调了治理质量在决定公共卫生政策严格程度方面的作用。
