Satisfaction with pandemic management and compliance with public health measures: Evidence from a German household survey on the COVID-19 crisis

We study how satisfaction with government efforts to respond to the COVID-19 crisis affects compliance with pandemic mitigation measures. Using a novel longitudinal household survey for Germany, we overcome the identification and endogeneity challenges involved in estimating individual compliance by using an instrumental variable approach that exploits exogenous variation in two indicators measured before the crisis: political party preferences and the mode of information measured by the frequency of using social media and reading newspapers. We find that a one unit increase in subjective satisfaction (on the 0-10 scale) improves protective behavior by 2-4 percentage points. Satisfaction with the government's COVID-19 management is lower among individuals with right-wing partisan preferences and among individuals who use only social media as an information source. Overall, our results indicate that the effectiveness of uniform policy measures in various domains, such as the health system, social security or taxation, especially during pandemic crises, cannot be fully evaluated without taking individual preferences for collective action into account.

Automated summary

We examine the impact of satisfaction with government efforts to combat COVID-19 on people's compliance with pandemic mitigation measures. Using a unique household survey in Germany, we address the challenges of identification and endogeneity by employing an instrumental variable approach, leveraging exogenous variations in political party preferences and information mode. Our findings show that a one unit increase in subjective satisfaction leads to a 2-4 percentage point improvement in protective behavior. Furthermore, individuals with right-wing partisan preferences and those who rely solely on social media for information have lower satisfaction with the government's COVID-19 management. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering individual preferences for collective action when evaluating the effectiveness of uniform policy measures during crises.