Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar:88:102721.
doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102721. Epub 2023 Feb 26.

Mask mandates save lives

Niels-Jakob H Hansen  1 , Rui C Mano  2
Affiliations

Mask mandates save lives

Niels-Jakob H Hansen et al. J Health Econ. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

We quantify the effect of statewide mask mandates in the United States in 2020. Our regression discontinuity design exploits county-level variation in COVID-19 outcomes across the border between states with and without mandates. State mask mandates reduced new weekly COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions, and deaths by 55, 11, and 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants on average. The effect depends on political leaning with larger effects in Democratic-leaning counties. Our results imply that statewide mandates saved 87,000 lives through December 19, 2020, while a nationwide mandate could have saved 57,000 additional lives. This suggests that mask mandates can help counter pandemics, particularly if widely accepted.

Keywords: COVID-19; Face masks; Public health measures; Regression discontinuity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Statewide Mask Mandates in the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Colombia . Note: State-level mask mandates are defined as the requirement that face coverings are worn at least in most public indoor spaces if social distance cannot be maintained, see Online Appendix for details.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Mask Mandates in Counties in and around New Mexico on June 1, 2020. Note: The map shows counties in New Mexico and the neighboring states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Counties are colored: (i) white if they are beyond 150 miles from the mask border; (ii) red (light gray) if they are within 150 miles from the mask border and do not have a mask mandate; and (iii) green (dark gray) if they are within 150 miles from the mask border and have a mask mandate.(For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
New weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 inhabitants . Note: These charts show raw data of new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths and thus do not account for county or time fixed effects as done in our econometric analysis. Data is binned in intervals of three miles. The distance to a county with a different mask policy is negative(positive) for counties without(with) statewide mask mandates.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
The estimated effects of statewide mask mandates on deaths per 100,000 inhabitants across political leaning . Note: The effect is computed using the estimates in column 3 of Table 1. “Republican vote share” denotes the share of votes obtained by the Republican presidential ticket in the 2020 election.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Abaluck Jason, Kwong Laura H, Styczynski Ashley, Haque Ashraful, Kabir Md Alamgir, Bates-Jefferys Ellen, Crawford Emily, Benjamin-Chung Jade, Benhachmi Salim, Raihan Shabib, et al. National Bureau of Economic Research; 2021. Normalizing Community Mask-Wearing: A Cluster Randomized Trial in Bangladesh: Tech. Rep.
    1. Calonico Sebastian, Cattaneo Matias D., Farrell Max H., Titiunik Rocío. Rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs. Stata J. 2017;17(2):372–404.
    1. Calonico Sebastian, Cattaneo Matias D, Farrell Max H, Titiunik Rocio. Regression discontinuity designs using covariates. Rev. Econ. Stat. 2019;101(3):442–451.
    1. Chernozhukov Victor, Kasahara Hiroyuki, Schrimpf Paul. Causal impact of masks, policies, behavior on early Covid-19 pandemic in the US. J. Econometrics. 2021;220(1):23–62. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dieterle Steven, Bartalotti Otávio, Brummet Quentin. Revisiting the effects of unemployment insurance extensions on unemployment: A measurement-error-corrected regression discontinuity approach. Am. Econ. J.: Econ. Policy. 2020;12(2):84–114.

Further Reading

    1. Eichenbaum Martin S., Rebelo Sergio, Trabandt Mathias. The macroeconomics of epidemics. Rev. Financ. Stud. 2021;34(11):5149–5187.
    1. Judson Ruth A., Owen Ann L. Estimating dynamic panel data models: a guide for macroeconomists. Econom. Lett. 1999;65(1):9–15.
    1. Dube Arindrajit, Lester T. William, Reich Michael. Minimum wage effects across state borders: Estimates using contiguous counties. Rev. Econ. Stat. 2010;92(4):945–964.
    1. Butts Kyle. Geographic difference-in-discontinuities. Appl. Econ. Lett. 2021:1–5.
    1. Grembi Veronica, Nannicini Tommaso, Troiano Ugo. Do fiscal rules matter? Am. Econ. J.: Appl. Econ. 2016:1–30.