Does social capital contribute to prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic? Empirical evidence from China

Abstract By exploiting anonymized travel records of patients with COVID-19, this study examines the impact of social capital on individuals' responses to control measures during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The empirical results show that social capital measured by social trust, media publicity of social norms, and public recognition of social norms has a significant effect on reducing individuals’ close contact behavior in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The mechanism tests indicate that social capital reduces the prevalence of close contact behavior by encouraging people to comply with public morality, which refers to self-monitored quarantine in this pandemic. Further analysis reveals that social trust shows no significant effects on all types of entertainment activities, that media publicity of social norms is more conducive to preventing family entertainment activities than public recognition of social norms, and that improving public recognition of social norms plays a decisive role in preventing social entertainment activities. This study sheds substantial light on the key role that informal institutions play in epidemic prevention and control.