Government Response Research Articles

Digital capacity and employment outcomes: Microdata evidence from pre- and post-COVID-19 Europe

This paper examines the relationship between employment outcomes and broadband Internet access, education and digital skills using the pre- and post-COVID-19 survey waves of the Eurostat Community Statistics on Information Society from 2017, 2019, and 2021 in 27 European countries. Joint estimates of individuals’ employment status and skills employ external controls based on Eurostat and COVID-19 European Regional Tracker NUTS1-level regional statistics and Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker information on governments’ containment and economic support measures. Broadband access, digital skills and educational attainment combine to raise employment outcomes, but COVID-19 has changed these relationships in distinct ways. It has increased employment benefits from formal education and roughly tripled the labor market advantages from having household members with tertiary education. The pandemic has increased the employment value of having at least some digital skills, while the relative benefits of more advanced digital skills shrank.

A comparative analysis of the effects of containment policies on the epidemiological manifestation of the COVID-19 pandemic across nine European countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catastrophic event that has seriously endangered the world’s population. Governments have largely been unprepared to deal with such an unprecedented calamity, partially due to the lack of sufficient or adequately fine-grained data necessary for forecasting the pandemic’s evolution. To fill this gap, researchers worldwide have been collecting data about different aspects of COVID-19’s evolution and government responses to them so as to provide the foundation for informative models and tools that can be used to mitigate the current pandemic and possibly prevent future ones. Indeed, since the early stages of the pandemic, a number of research initiatives were launched with this goal, including the PERISCOPE (Pan-European Response to the ImpactS of COVID-19 and future Pandemics and Epidemics) Project, funded by the European Commission. PERISCOPE aims to investigate the broad socio-economic and behavioral impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of making Europe more resilient and prepared for future large-scale risks. The purpose of this study, carried out as part of the PERISCOPE project, is to provide a first European-level analysis of the effect of government policies on the spread of the virus. To do so, we assessed the relationship between a novel index, the Policy Intensity Index, and four epidemiological variables collected by the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and then applied a comprehensive Pan-European population model based on Multilevel Vector Autoregression. This model aims at identifying effects that are common to some European countries while treating country-specific policies as covariates, explaining the different evolution of the pandemic in nine selected countries due to data availability: Spain, France, Netherlands, Latvia, Slovenia, Greece, Ireland, Cyprus, Estonia. Results show that specific policies’ effectiveness tend to vary consistently within the different countries, although in general policies related to Health Monitoring and Health Resources are the most effective for all countries.

A comparative study of the performance of Iran and G7 countries in the management of COVID-19

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare the performance of Iran and G7 countries in the management of the COVID-19 crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe indicators and statistics provided by the Oxford Government Response Tracker are used in this research. Sixteen indicators and their related items have been analyzed for eight countries including Iran, Canada, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States. For data analysis, Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and Tukey’s post hoc test were applied, and structural equation modeling performed with the help of SPSS and Smart-PLS software.FindingsThe results show that 8 indicators of closing schools, cancellation of public events, restriction of gatherings, restriction of domestic travel, restriction of international travel, reduction of household debt, testing policy, and contact tracing, have an effect on the number of deaths in the countries under review. The results also showed that the countries exhibit behaviors outside their normal culture during the crisis.Originality/valueThis paper will be helpful for scholars, as well as policymakers when making policies on the appropriate responses to COVID-19 and similar pandemics.

Linking government interventions to firm performance: the influence of stringency and support during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThis study uncovers how government interventions, in terms of stringency and support, shape coronavirus disease 2019's (COVID-19) detrimental impact on organizations' performance. Specifically, this paper studies whether stringency and support play complementary or substitutive roles in lowering COVID-19's impact on organizations' performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors gathered primary data from USA manufacturing companies and combined this with secondary data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) to test the proposed model with structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsThe results show that the stringency approach increases the detrimental impact on both operational and financial performance, while economic support (to households) and fiscal spending (to organizations) work differently on lowering the impacts of COVID-19. Further, these combinative effects only influence the firm's operational performance, albeit in opposite directions.Originality/valueThis study advances the knowledge of government interventions by examining stringency and support's direct and interaction effects on firm performance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings contribute to the literature by uncovering the unique roles of both supportive policies, thus differentiating economic support (to individuals/households) from fiscal spending (to organizations) and providing important academic, managerial and policy insights into how government should best initiate and blend stringency and support policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Critical Evaluation of the Psychology Curricula of Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees

Issue-based movements can generate strong responses in the social and political domain. Such movements, provided with an acknowledgement of impact and integrity, draw enough response from the civil society and the people in power. The main object of this paper is to know the social reality behind the issue based social movement of Dr. Govinda KC in Nepal. This is to answer a question why such reality exists and how the movement was addressed by the stakeholders. This qualitative analysis based on literature search, media monitoring and key informant interviews, finds that Dr. KC’s satyagraha hada larger public response and was taken as a commitment to the truth and social-justice issue in Nepal. However the government response, at some points, was seen from only one side of the power struggle. The government response to the peaceful demands that was highly supported by civil society was with unwanted delay, attempt of diffusion, and even with efforts for branding the civil society campaigners with political tools and using that attack as a way to detract from the popular demands challenging government’s democratic accountability.

Canada's primary care crisis: Federal government response.

Primary healthcare in Canada is in crisis. One in six Canadians lack a regular family physician and less than half of Canadians are able to see a primary care provider on the same or next day. The consequences are significant in terms of the stress and anxiety foisted upon Canadians in need of care, including limited diagnoses and referrals for potentially life-threatening conditions. This article explores options for the federal government to take a more hands-on role responding to the present crisis that are constitutionally compliant: investments in virtual care; additional funding for primary care tied to a strengthened condition of reasonable access within the Canada Health Act; a federally-funded direct incentive scheme to lure back providers who have left due to burnout; and the establishment of a commission for access and quality in primary care.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MERDEKA CURRICULUM IN ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION SUBJECTS IN GRADE VII OF SMP IT INSAN HARAPAN KARAWANG ACADEMIC YEAR 2022 – 2023

The independent curriculum or what is known as independent learning is a form of government response to the condition of Indonesian education after the Covid-19 pandemic. This policy was launched as an effort by the government to help restore learning in Indonesia. This research was conducted at SMP IT Insan Harapan, Karawang. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of the independent curriculum in improving students' cognitive in PAI subjects using a cognitive learning theory approach. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative to provide field notes regarding the implementation of the independent curriculum with data collection techniques through observation and interviews. The results of this study, SMP IT Insan Harapan has not fully implemented the new independent curriculum implemented in class VII. While grades VIII and IX are still using the 2013 curriculum, or it can be said that SMP IT Insan Harapan is still in the independent stage of change. But until now the implementation is very effective and can improve student learning outcomes. The implementation of the independent curriculum at SMP IT Insan Harapan is supported by students, teachers and school infrastructure.
 Keywords: Independent curriculum, learning outcomes, PAI

Business resilience: Lessons from government responses to the global COVID-19 crisis

This study explores the survival of firms across countries, and what factors contribute to their ability to withstand large-scale exogenous shocks, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Using corporate default risk as a measure of non-resilience, our empirical results from 97 countries reveal that stringent COVID-19 containment measures created a significant resilience test for businesses worldwide. Further tests suggest that cash holdings, knowledge assets, international sales, and access to foreign capital markets are crucial for global businesses to pull through exogenous shocks. Country-level institutional qualities also play an essential role in shaping business resilience during a crisis. Our study is the first to comprehensively analyze the drivers of business resilience across diverse countries using the COVID-19 outbreak as a major global crisis, providing a nuanced understanding of this topic in international business.

The efficacy of government strategies to control the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThis study aims to explore the efficacy of government policy directions in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by employing a panel of 22 countries throughout the 2020-second quarter of 2022.Design/methodology/approachThe panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed to examine this phenomenon and to investigate the long-run effects of government policy decisions on infection and mortality rates from the pandemic.FindingsThe study reveals the following key findings: (1) Income support and debt relief facilities and stringent standards of governments are associated with reduced infection and death rates. (2) The response of governments has resulted in decreased mortality rates while simultaneously leading to an unexpected increase in infection rates. (3) Containment and healthcare practices have led to a decrease in infection rates but an increase in mortality rates, presenting another counterintuitive outcome. Despite the expectation that robust government responses would decrease infection rates and that healthcare containment practices would reduce mortality, these results highlight a lack of health equity and the challenge of achieving high vaccination rates across countries.Research limitations/implicationsTo effectively combat the spread of COVID-19, it is crucial to implement containment health practices in conjunction with tracing and individual-level quarantine. Simply implementing containment health measures without these interconnected strategies would be ineffective. Therefore, policy implications derived from containment health measures should be accompanied by targeted, aggressive, and rapid containment strategies aimed at significantly reducing the number of individuals infected with COVID-19.Practical implicationsThis study concludes by suggesting the importance of implementing economic support in terms of income, and debt relief has played a crucial role in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 infections and reducing fatality rates.Social implicationsTo effectively combat the spread of COVID-19, it is crucial to implement containment health practices in conjunction with tracing and individual-level quarantine. Simply implementing containment health measures without these interconnected strategies would be ineffective. Therefore, policy implications derived from containment health measures should be accompanied by targeted, aggressive, and rapid containment strategies aimed at significantly reducing the number of individuals infected with COVID-19.Originality/valueThis research makes a unique contribution to the existing literature by investigating the impact of government responses on reducing COVID-19 infections and fatalities, specifically focusing on the period before COVID-19 vaccinations became available.

A Scoping Review to Guide Social Work Policy-Practice for Pandemic Recovery

Purpose: The aim of this scoping review is to systematically scope the literature on social work, the COVID-19 pandemic, and health policy. The research question guiding the scoping review is: What are the policy issues emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic that are of importance for social workers working in health and mental health? Method: Scoping review methodology following Arksey and O’Malley's five-stage framework. Results: A final sample of 191 articles were included in the scoping review. The five themes identified are: (a) strengthening social work's capacity to address structural issues in practice, (b) gaps in social work education, (c) need for new and updated standards and guidelines, (d) need for professional clarity and professional supports, and (e) inadequate government response. Conclusions: By strengthening uptake of the policy-practice framework, social work practitioners concurrently address immediate client issues and address upstream factors perpetuating inequities emerging during the pandemic.

State Capacity and COVID-19: Targeted versus Population-Wide Restrictions

Context: During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments varied in their implementation of social distancing rules. Some governments were able to target their social distancing requirements toward specific segments of the population, whereas others had to resort to more indiscriminate applications. This article will argue that state capacity crucially affected the manner in which social distancing rules were applied. Methods: Using data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, the author performed a series of ordered logistic regressions to examine whether state capacity increased the likelihood of more targeted applications of each social distancing rule. Findings: Given the same level of infectivity, more capable states were indeed more likely to resort to targeted applications of each social distancing restriction. Interestingly, the size of state capacity's effect varied by the type of restriction. State capacity had a stronger influence on face-covering requirements and private-gathering restrictions than it had on school closures, workplace closures, and stay-at-home orders. Conclusions: The way in which social distancing rules are applied is endogenous to state capacity. Effective governance is a precursor to more targeted and nuanced applications of social distancing rules.

Modelling the COVID-19 pandemic: Focusing on the case of Greece

The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) pandemic created an unprecedented chain of events at a global scale, with European counties initially following individual pathways on the confrontation of the global healthcare crisis, before organizing coordinated public vaccination campaigns, when proper vaccines became available. In the meantime, the viral infection outbreaks were determined by the inability of the immune system to retain a long-lasting protection as well as the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 variants with differential transmissibility and virulence. How do these different parameters regulate the domestic impact of the viral epidemic outbreak? We developed two versions of a mathematical model, an original and a revised one, able to capture multiple factors affecting the epidemic dynamics. We tested the original one on five European countries with different characteristics, and the revised one in one of them, Greece. For the development of the model, we used a modified version of the classical SEIR model, introducing various parameters related to the estimated epidemiology of the pathogen, governmental and societal responses, and the concept of quarantine. We estimated the temporal trajectories of the identified and overall active cases for Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy and Sweden, for the first 250 days. Finally, using the revised model, we estimated the temporal trajectories of the identified and overall active cases for Greece, for the duration of the 1230 days (until June 2023). As shown by the model, small initial numbers of exposed individuals are enough to threaten a large percentage of the population. This created an important political dilemma in most countries. Force the virus to extinction with extremely long and restrictive measures or merely delay its spread and aim for herd immunity. Most countries chose the former, which enabled the healthcare systems to absorb the societal pressure, caused by the increased numbers of patients, requiring hospitalization and intensive care.

Environmental risk management from below: living with landslides in Bududa, eastern Uganda

ABSTRACT This article explores how the people of Bududa used culturally and spiritually embedded knowledge to tame extreme weather and ably live with the spectre and reality of landslides since the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on multiple oral and written sources, the article shows how landslides were experienced in the past and chronicles recent government and community responses to living with landslides. The article shows that local approaches to managing risks worked effectively when land for expansion was still readily available. However, increasing population and heavy cultivation of the land over the course of the twentieth century put heavy pressure on the land thereby making it more susceptible to landslides. Consequently, the impact of the landslides became so severe necessitating government intervention to support the affected communities. Focusing on landslides as recurring risks that are socially constructed and managed, the article shows the innovativeness and resilience of the people of Bududa in living with and managing environmental risks.

The Public Engagement Industry: Distancing Publics through Managed Engagement and Ideologised Transparency

“Public Engagement” is a salient term that signifies industry-deployed strategies and tactics to manage public demands for recognition and participation in the formation of public policy. The term also includes government responses to these demands by outsourcing public-government relations to interested organisations. This Public Engagement Industry (PEI) legitimises actions and policies through consulting enterprises, public relations (PR) and commercial organisations that take advantage of weakened public spheres, to which the PEI contributes. The PEI is oriented toward officially planned outcomes by folding public concerns into formulaic engagement practices. A local example highlights generic lines of division between the PEI, its clients and resistance groups. More generally, the PEI's assumptions of communication, dialogue, deliberation, and transparency are criticised, along with its methods of data gathering that pose “public engagement” as though public stamps of approval had been demonstrated, claims that deserve critical analysis.

Addressing Policy Challenges of Disruptive Technologies

ABSTRACT This special issue examines the policy challenges and government responses to disruptive technologies. It explores the risks, benefits, and trade-offs of deploying disruptive technologies, and examines the efficacy of traditional governance approaches and the need for new regulatory and governance frameworks. Key themes include the need for government stewardship, taking adaptive and proactive approaches, developing comprehensive policies accounting for technical, social, economic, and political dimensions, conducting interdisciplinary research, and addressing data management and privacy challenges. The findings enhance understanding of how governments can navigate the complexities of disruptive technologies and develop policies to maximize benefits and mitigate risks.

The Conflicting Soviet Responses to the Lausanne Process (1922-1924)

The article examines the Soviet responses to the Lausanne Process, which took place from May to November 1923. The process involved the trial of Russian émigrés Moritz Conradi and Arkadii Polunin, who were accused of murdering Vatslav Vatslavovich Vorovskii, the Soviet representative in Italy and head of the delegation to the Lausanne Conference, on May 10, 1923. The acquittal of Conradi and Polunin by a Swiss jury on November 16, 1923, under the verdict of "not guilty," as they were seen as avenging victims of Soviet repression, had a significant impact on the Russian emigration. While the historiography increasingly recognizes the role of various Russian émigrés in turning the trial into a denunciation of Bolshevism, little is known about the Soviet government's response to Vorovskii's killing and the efforts of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID) to participate in the legal proceedings. By analyzing unpublished letters written by Soviet government officials found in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and considering the international context of 1923, this study aligns with the historiographic trend that emphasizes collective leadership and institutional autonomy in Soviet foreign policy decisions following Lenin's increasing isolation in late 1922. The research demonstrates that when the Swiss government prevented the Soviet counterpart from participating as a legal party in the process, Moscow resorted to non-traditional foreign projections, which encompassed actions beyond formal diplomacy, and even involved non-communist actors to present the USSR in a positive and "objective" light at Lausanne. However, the bureaucratic complexities of the Soviet state hindered success in court. Thus, the handling of the Lausanne Process by the prosecution serves as an illustrative example of how post-Civil War Soviet institutions operated in relation to one another, characterized by intricate dynamics and an entrenched bureaucracy, far from the alleged "totalitarian" tendencies.

Engaging with Distant Suffering Amid a Domestic Crisis: Exposure to Messages About COVID-19 Infections in the Global South Can Trigger Pro-Social Responses in the Global North

ABSTRACT Transnational solidarity is essential during global crises, particularly for resource-deprived countries. This study investigated whether messages about rising COVID−19 infections in the Global South can raise awareness and trigger solidarity among audiences in the Global North during an acute domestic crisis. Moreover, it tested whether the effects depend on the message framing. In two 2 + 1 experiments in the first months of the pandemic, participants from Germany were exposed to messages that informed them about rising infections in India. I found that message exposure made the threat to the population in the Global South more salient, increased empathy with the affected, resulted in a stronger intention to directly help, and tentatively led to more support of a government response. Whether messages framed rising infections as a humanitarian catastrophe for the Indian population or as a threat to the German population due to the increased likelihood of a virus mutation resulted in nuanced differences, yet overall, effects were more similar than expected. The priming of existing beliefs about the Global South, the particular context of a pandemic, the strength of the communicated threat, and study timing are discussed as potential explanations. Overall, the results underline how important it is to continue reporting about regions that seem distant or even peripheral from the perspective of the Global North in times of domestic crisis. The theoretical relevance of the findings beyond the specific historical context is highlighted.

Herding behavior and government policy responses: Evidence from COVID-19 effect

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of a sudden shock from the COVID-19 epidemic on the behavioral bias of investors in the stock market of Iran as a developing country. The study also examines whether the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic can reduce investor herding behavior. We have used the Cross-sectional absolute deviation (CSAD) to measure securities dispersion from market returns. The studied period includes the cross-sectional data of the top 50 companies listed on the stock exchange during 2381 working days of the market (from March 1, 2012, to March 1, 2022). Furthermore, we use the semi-parametric estimator of the quantile regression for the data on the Iranian government response during the COVID-19 epidemic taken from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT). The main findings are in order. First, results show that the COVID-19 pandemic caused the formation of herding behavior aggravated by market volatility. Second, we document that the government response stringency index is unsuccessful in reducing investor herding behavior in the Iranian stock market. Finally, given the evidence that herding behavior, as a form of behavioral distortion, can drive security prices away from equilibrium values supported by fundamentals and cause price bubbles, our findings have important implications for policymakers and investors to mitigate herding effects and mis valuations.

Pandemic panic? Effects of health system capacity on firm confidence during COVID-19

We examine whether firms’ business confidence – defined as their perceptions of risk and sentiment associated with the COVID-19 pandemic – is affected by ex ante health system capacity and ex post government responses. Using firm-level data from 53 countries, we find that ex ante proactive measures, such as healthcare spending and the availability of medical staff, favorably impact firms’ confidence. This effect is, however, moderated by the COVID-19 case load. We also find that the ex post reactive measures, such as health and containment actions and the overall quality of the government response, also bolster business confidence. These effects on confidence vary by firm size and the level of development of the economy, but are largely impervious to prior epidemic experience.

Informed Random Forest to Model Associations of Epidemiological Priors, Government Policies, and Public Mobility.

This framework is initiated by incorporating model outputs from an epidemic model to a machine learning model.An informed random forest (RF) is instantiated to model government and public responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.This framework does not require data transformations, and the epidemic model is shown to boost the RF's performance.This is a baseline knowledge-informed learning framework for assessing public health interventions in Botswana.