| dc.description.abstract | Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the prioritization of physical or fiscal health in pandemic policies has been widely debated among politicians and scholars worldwide. Studies on European COVID-19 polices have found that policies that prioritize slowing the spread of the virus result in better economic outcomes, but there is not yet a consensus on which COVID-19 policies have benefitted the United States economy. While current research has focused on national policies, variation in state-level policies could provide a more nuanced view of the economic impact of COVID-19 health policies in the United States. For my project, I used state-level COVID-19 health policy data in order to determine how policy affected key economic indicators. Furthermore, I used data on the political affiliation of each state’s governor to discover what drove COVID-19 health policies and if policy was enacted along party lines. As a result of my findings, I argue that health policy that aims to control the spread of diseases while initially causing greater economic losses, will allow the economy to recover quicker and cause better economic outcomes long-term. Additionally, I found that the political affiliation of the state’s governor consistently predicted the state’s response to COVID-19, with Republican governors pursuing less restrictive policies. In conclusion, this project, by closely examining the relationship between COVID-19 policy, economics, and politics, sheds light on the false argument among policymakers in the United States that COVID-19 policy needed to choose between prioritizing lives or livelihood. | |
