Leadership Communication and COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy

This paper empirically analyzes the impact of leadership communication on the COVID-19 vaccination rate using a quasi-experimental design. Based on a speech of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, we examine how political leaders can influence the willingness to get vaccinated of a country'...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:MAGKS - Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics (Band 06-2022)
Main Author: Klotz, Phil-Adrian
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Philipps-Universität Marburg 2022
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Summary:This paper empirically analyzes the impact of leadership communication on the COVID-19 vaccination rate using a quasi-experimental design. Based on a speech of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, we examine how political leaders can influence the willingness to get vaccinated of a country's citizens by transmitting scientific insights into a clear and vivid message as well as by threatening credibly with future restrictions for unvaccinated people. In a Difference-in- Differences (DiD) framework it is shown that a televised address of Macron has increased the vaccination rate in France by roughly 5%. We test the robustness of this result by applying an event study design. Our findings imply that leadership communication is an effective weapon to change the beliefs of unvaccinated citizens and to overcome COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy.
Physical Description:31 Pages
ISSN:1867-3678
DOI:10.17192/es2024.0715