Minimizing COVID-19 Transmission Cases: Do Policies and Institutions Matter?

This paper examines the effects of institutional factors and government policy responses on COVID-19 infection cases. It applies the Random Effects (RE) and GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) estimation techniques to panel data to explore the relationship between COVID-19 cases on the one hand and institutions and government policy responses on the other. The paper finds that the nature and timing of policy responses matter and that institutions play a crucial role in explaining observed infection cases across countries.