Working Paper: NBER ID: w30303
Authors: Riley K. Acton; Wenjia Cao; Emily E. Cook; Scott A. Imberman; Michael F. Lovenheim
Abstract: Since the spring of 2021, nearly 700 colleges and universities in the U.S. have mandated that their students become vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. We leverage rich data on colleges’ vaccination policies and semester start dates, along with a variety of county-level public health outcomes, to provide the first estimates of the effects of these mandates on the communities surrounding four-year, residential colleges. In event study specifications, we find that, over the first 13 weeks of the fall 2021 semester, college vaccine mandates reduced new COVID-19 cases by 339 per 100,000 county residents and new deaths by 5.4 per 100,000 residents, with an estimated value of lives saved between $9.7 million and $27.4 million per 100,000 residents. These figures suggest that the mandates reduced total US COVID-19 deaths in autumn 2021 by approximately 5%.
Keywords: COVID-19; vaccine mandates; public health; college students
JEL Codes: H75; I18; I23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| college vaccine mandates (I23) | new covid19 cases (Y10) |
| college vaccine mandates (I23) | deaths (I12) |
| college vaccine mandates (I23) | prevented deaths (I12) |
| college vaccine mandates (I23) | lives saved (J17) |