Populism and Political (Mis-)Belief Effect on Individual Adherence to Lockdown during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

To curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), social distancing and lockdown have been used in the past months. Using province-level geolocation data from Italy, we document that political belief can potentially limit the effectiveness of government distancing orders. Residents in provinces leaning towards extreme right-wing party show a lower reduction in social distancing. We also find that, during the Italian lockdown, in provinces with a high protest votes, social distancing order were disregarded. On the contrary in provinces were there is a higher political support for the current political legislation there were a higher social distancing compliance. These results are robust to controlling for other factors including time, geography, local COVID-19 cases and deaths, family characteristics, and healthcare hospital beds as well as other geo-economical provinces characteristics. Our research shows that bipartisan support as well as national responsibility are essential in order to efficiently implement social distancing. We also suggest that partisan politics and discontent with the political class, as measured by protest voting, might greatly affect human health and the economy.