Press freedom and stringency measures: the role of energy consumption during COVID-19 lockdowns

Abstract Effective disaster management is necessary for saving lives during any pandemic period. However, it is debatable whether higher stringency measures harm the livelihood (proxied by electricity consumption) of citizens. A negative impact (if any) can be alleviated by higher press freedom, given that higher information transparency is supported by the literature in facilitating government and public responses to a pandemic. We consider the recent COVID-19 pandemic for the empirical analysis. To analyze the impact, we estimate the responsiveness of electricity consumption due to the rate of changes in COVID-19 stringency measures. We compare the responsiveness value between countries of high- and low-press-freedom groups. The data cover the period between January 01, 2020, and December 31, 2021, for 240 countries. The finding suggests the robustness of higher press freedom in alleviating the negative impact of COVID-19 stringency measures. This conclusion holds even when using per capita GDP as a measure of livelihood instead of electricity consumption.