On Friday, April 29th, at 02.30pm (Lisbon time), on Room B -133 the NOVAFRICA Center welcomes Monica Martinez-Bravo from the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies to present her work on “The Management of the Pandemic and its Effects on Trust and Accountability”.
Author:
Monica Martinez-Bravo
Abstract:
The management of the COVID-19 pandemic represented one of the greatest challenges that policymakers had to face in recent history. The rapidly changing reality and directives may have contributed to a popular perception of erratic management of governments in many countries. In
this paper, we investigate how people process information regarding the quality of the management of the pandemic in their region. We conduct an online experiment in Spain in November 2020.
A randomly selected treated group obtained information on the number of contact tracers in their region, a key policy to manage the pandemic. We find that individuals greatly over-estimate the number of contact tracers in their region. When provided the actual number of contact tracers, individuals experience a significant reduction in trust in governments and other political institutions.
We also find a reduction on individuals’ willingness to comply with government’s recommendation of getting vaccinated. Finally, we also find evidence that individuals’ ideological leanings affect how they process the negative news regarding the number of contact tracers. When the government is divided (different coalitions at the regional and central governments) those politically aligned to their regional government are more likely to shift blame to the central government for the deficient number of contact tracers. As a result, accountability is reduced in divided governments: vote intention for either the regional or the central government does not change after the information provition. In non-divided governments, by contrast, the governing coalition is electorally punished. These findings illustrates the difficulties in the exercise of political accountability when political preferences are polarized and when areas of responsibility are not well established.
Find more about this seminar here.