Abstract
New Zealand’s Alert Level Four lockdown was one of the strictest in the world. The vast majority of New Zealanders not only approved of the restrictions, but also abided by them. We argue that in a democratic society like New Zealand, it would not have been possible for the restrictions to be enforced without there being a high degree of social capital. In this chapter, we compare New Zealand’s level of social capital to that of other countries and discuss why New Zealand having high social capital has been important in the fight against COVID-19. We also discuss some lessons from behavioural economics about the conditions under which strict lockdowns become more difficult to enforce, the longer the restrictions are in place.
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Notes
- 1.
As can be seen in Fig. 14.1, Australia had a very similar death rate to New Zealand, until Australia experienced a second wave of deaths.
- 2.
Strictly speaking, New Zealand moved to Alert Level Four at 11:59 p.m on 25 March. In cases where a move to a new level occurred at 11:59 p.m, we report this as moving to the Alert Level the following day.
- 3.
For further evidence of a positive correlation between experimental measures of trust and survey measures of trust, see Etang et al. (2012).
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Fielding, D., Knowles, S. (2021). The Importance of Social Capital in New Zealand’s COVID-19 Response. In: Ratuva, S., Ross, T., Crichton-Hill, Y., Basu, A., Vakaoti, P., Martin-Neuninger, R. (eds) COVID-19 and Social Protection. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2948-8_14
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