Achieving a Covid-19 Free Country: Citizens Preventive Measures and Communication Pathways

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread on a global scale in an extremely short time, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, and, at the same time, triggering extreme panic. Prevention in medicine is considered the best protection action for individuals in order to avoid infections. This study investigates whether Greek citizens (N = 3359) take the necessary precautions to prevent developing the COVID-19 disease, and it segments them based on homogenous behavior groups. Lastly, it provides communication techniques that should be implemented, targeting each citizen segment for a long-term COVID-19 free country. Data analysis revealed the extent of the applied precaution measures. The ones most applied by citizens were to avoid non-mandatory transportation, contact with individuals with respiratory symptoms, and individuals of high risk for severe illness (vulnerable groups). On the other hand, the least applied measures are daily checks of body temperature, monitoring for fever, cough, or dyspnea, use of a face mask when in public places, or when using public transportation. Additionally, cluster analysis revealed five groups of citizens based on self-reported behavior, namely, the Meticulous Proactive Citizens, the Self-isolated Citizens, the Cautious Citizens, the Occasionally Cautious Citizens, and the Unconcerned Citizens. Communication strategies targeting each segment are also discussed.

The Federal Reserve and Panic Prevention: The Roles of Financial Regulation and Lender of Last Resort

This paper surveys the role of the Federal Reserve within the financial regulatory system, with particular attention to the interaction of the Fed's role as both a supervisor and a lender-of-last-resort. The institutional design of the Federal Reserve System was aimed at preventing banking panics, primarily due to the permanent presence of the discount window. This new system was successful at preventing a panic in the early 1920s, after which the Fed began to discourage the use of the discount window and intentionally create “stigma” for window borrowing—policies that contributed to the panics of the Great Depression. The legislation of the New Deal era centralized Fed power in the Board of Governors, and over the next 75 years the Fed expanded its role as a supervisor of the largest banks. Nevertheless, prior to the recent crisis the Fed had large gaps in its authority as a supervisor and as lender of last resort, with the latter role weakened further by stigma. The Fed was unable to prevent the recent crisis, during which its lender of last resort function expanded significantly. As the Fed begins its second century, there are still great challenges to fulfilling its original intention of panic prevention.