A dataset of governments' economic responses to COVID-19.

We introduce a new dataset of ten economic measures in percentage of gross domestic product implemented by governments worldwide between January 2020 and June 2021 to fight COVID-19. The measures coded include fiscal measures (wage support, cash transfers, in-kind transfers, tax cuts, sectorial support and credit schemes), tax deferrals, off-budget measures, and main policy rate cuts. The data can be used to study the impact of economic measures on different outcomes, and to understand the diffusion of economic policies during crises.

Policy Design for COVID-19: Worldwide Evidence on the Efficacies of Early Mask Mandates and Other Policy Interventions.

To understand the extent to which a policy instrument's early adoption is crucial in crisis management, we leverage unique worldwide data that record the daily evolution of policy mandate adoptions and COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. The analysis shows that the mask mandate is consistently associated with lower infection rates in the short term, and its early adoption boosts the long-term efficacy. By contrast, the other five policy instruments-domestic lockdowns, international travel bans, mass gathering bans, and restaurant and school closures-show weaker efficacy.

Social distancing beliefs and human mobility: Evidence from Twitter.

We construct a novel database containing hundreds of thousands geotagged messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic sent on Twitter. We create a daily index of social distancing-at the state level-to capture social distancing beliefs by analyzing the number of tweets containing keywords such as "stay home", "stay safe", "wear mask", "wash hands" and "social distancing". We find that an increase in the Twitter index of social distancing on day t-1 is associated with a decrease in mobility on day t.