Ebola and State Legitimacy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fluckiger, Matthias; Ludwig, Markus; Onder, Ali Sina
• 署名单位: Queens University Belfast; University of Bayreuth; University of Portsmouth
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12638
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 2064-2089
• 关键词: virus disease; west-africa; economic-development; capacity; CONFLICT; origins; transmission; OUTBREAK; burden; HEALTH

摘要

We exploit the West African Ebola epidemic as an event that necessitated the provision of a common-interest public good, Ebola control measures, to empirically investigate the effect of public good provision on state legitimacy. Our results show that state legitimacy, measured by trust in government authorities, increased with exposure to the epidemic. We argue, supported by results from SMS-message-based surveys, that a potentially important channel underlying this finding is a greater valuation of control measures in regions with intense transmission. Evidence further indicates that the effects of Ebola exposure are more pronounced in areas where governments responded relatively robustly to the epidemic.