Data and Code for: Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Marcella Alsan, Harvard University; Luca Braghieri, Bocconi University; Sarah Eichmeyer, Bocconi University; Minjeong Joyce Kim, University of Michigan; Stefanie Stantcheva, Harvard University. Department of Economics; David Y. Yang, Harvard University. Department of Economics

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
176601			07/26/2023 11:47:PM

Project Citation:

Alsan, Marcella , Braghieri, Luca , Eichmeyer, Sarah , Kim, Minjeong Joyce, Stantcheva, Stefanie , and Yang, David Y. Data and Code for: Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-09-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E176601V1

Project Description

Summary: Major crises --- from terrorist attacks to epidemic outbreaks --- bring the trade-off between individual civil liberties and societal well-being into sharp relief. In this paper, we study how willing citizens are to restrict civil liberties to improve public health conditions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 68\%-83\% 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.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Randomized Control Trial; COVID-19; Civil liberties; Informational experiment

JEL Classification:
      D70 Analysis of Collective Decision-Making: General
      H10 Structure and Scope of Government: General
      I10 Health: General

Geographic Coverage: The Netherlands, Singapore, Japan, India, Spain, Canada, South Korea, Sweden, U.S., China, Italy, U.K., Australia, France, Germany

Time Period(s): 3/30/2020 – 1/18/2021

Collection Date(s): 3/30/2020 – 1/18/2021

Universe: Persons aged 18 and over living in the countries indicated under "Geographic Coverage" above.

Data Type(s): experimental data; survey data

Collection Notes: The in-depth data were collected through a survey platform "Qualtrics".

Methodology

Data Source: The survey data were collected by the authors. Please see Online Appendix Section F for secondary data sources.

Unit(s) of Observation: Individuals

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Published Versions

V1 [2023-09-12]

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