Rugged Individualism and Collective (In)action During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Samuel Bazzi, Martin Fiszbein, Mesay Gebresilasse

NBER Working Paper No. 27776
Issued in September 2020
NBER Program(s):Development of the American Economy, Health Economics, Law and Economics, Public Economics, Political Economy

Rugged individualism—the combination of individualism and anti-statism—is a prominent feature of American culture with deep roots in the country’s history of frontier settlement. Today, rugged individualism is more prevalent in counties with greater total frontier experience (TFE) during the era of westward expansion. While individualism may be conducive to innovation, it can also undermine collective action, with potentially adverse social consequences. We show that America’s frontier culture hampered the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across U.S. counties, greater TFE is associated with less social distancing and mask use as well as weaker local government effort to control the virus. We argue that frontier culture lies at the root of several more proximate explanations for the weak collective response to public health risks, including a lack of civic duty, partisanship, and distrust in science.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w27776