Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15410
Authors: Marcella Alsan; Luca Braghieri; Sarah Eichmeyer; Minjeong Joyce Kim; Stefanie Stantcheva; David Yang
Abstract: Major crises --- from terrorist attacks to outbreaks of disease --- bring the trade-off between individual civil liberties and national security or well-being into sharp relief. In this paper, we study to what extent individual preferences for protecting rights and civil liberties are elastic to health insecurity. We design and conduct representative surveys involving approximately 550,000 responses across 15 countries, including China and the United States, during many months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 2020 until January 2021. We document significant heterogeneity across countries and demographic groups in willingness to sacrifice rights for public welfare. Citizens disadvantaged by income, education, or race are less willing to sacrifice rights than their more advantaged peers in every country, as are those with prior experience in communist regimes. Leveraging naturally-occurring variation as well as experimental approaches, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in health security concerns increases willingness to sacrifice civil liberties by approximately 72%-92% of the difference between the average Chinese and U.S. citizen. Stated preferences correlate with observed behavior including demand for tracing apps, donations, and petitions.
Keywords: liberties; redistribution; cross-country surveys; experiment; public health
JEL Codes: No JEL codes provided
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Lower-income individuals (I32) | Willingness to sacrifice civil liberties (H56) |
| Less education (I24) | Willingness to sacrifice civil liberties (H56) |
| Health insecurity (I14) | Willingness to sacrifice civil liberties (H56) |
| Local COVID-19 mortality spikes (I12) | Health insecurity (I14) |
| Health insecurity (I14) | Willingness to sacrifice personal rights (P14) |
| Health insecurity (I14) | Willingness to sacrifice press freedoms (P14) |
| Health insecurity (I14) | Willingness to sacrifice privacy protections (K24) |
| Information treatments (C22) | Health insecurity perceptions (I14) |