Citizens' economic recovery models for a pandemic

Area of Science:

• Socioeconomics
• Public Policy
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic triggered severe global economic disruption.
• Governments worldwide implemented policies to mitigate economic crises.
• Understanding public preferences for economic policy during pandemics is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate Danish citizens' economic policy preferences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• To analyze how these preferences changed as the economic crisis developed.
• To examine the role of partisanship in shaping economic policy views.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a two-wave nationally representative panel survey of 12,131 Danish citizens.
• Data collected at the onset of the economic shock and before recovery.
• Employed a dictionary method to analyze open-text responses on preferred economic solutions.

Main Results:

• Citizens expressed a wide range of economic policy interventions.
• Support for economic intervention significantly increased as the pandemic crisis progressed.
• Partisan differences in economic policy preferences largely disappeared during the crisis.

Conclusions:

• The COVID-19 crisis fostered a stronger public demand for government economic intervention.
• Pandemics can temporarily reduce political polarization regarding economic policy.
• Citizen preferences evolved dynamically in response to the unfolding economic shock.