Cross-country economic policy response to Covid-19

With the Covid-19 is still spreading at a rapid pace, the social distancing measures and economic policy response to Covid-19 varies a great deal across countries. For example, Germany’s response to the Covid-19 is very aggressive compared to Sweden’s response, which did not lockdown at all. Similarly, in terms of economic policy response, the stimulus package of Germany is 17% of their GDP compared to the US, whose stimulus package is 10% of their GDP and only 0.56% of GDP in case of China.1 Although there are many unknowns about Covid-19 yet these countries have access to same scientific evidence whatever is available. Hence, a natural questions arises why the social distancing measures and economic policy response varies across countries. We address this question in our research.