The Indian federation is highly centripetal, and historically, this has left states without the requisite legislative and fiscal authority to take independent action and initiate policies of significance. Consequently, India's response to the global COVID‐19 pandemic was to impose a very severe countrywide lockdown using the mandate of the Union (federal) government. This centralized one‐size‐fits‐all diktat was imposed despite high variations across states in resources, healthcare capacity, and incidence of COVID‐19 cases. We argue that India's dysfunctional federalism is the reason for the centralized lockdown, preventing state and local governments from tailoring a policy response to suit local needs. Using mobility data, we demonstrate the high variation in curtailing mobility in different states through the centralized lockdown. We find that India's centralized lockdown was at best a partial success in a handful of states, while imposing enormous economic costs even in areas where few were affected by the pandemic.

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以功能失调的联邦制对抗 COVID-19：印度的教训


印度联邦具有高度向心性，从历史上看，这使得各邦没有必要的立法和财政权力来采取独立行动和发起重要政策。因此，印度对全球 COVID-19 大流行的反应是利用联盟（联邦政府）的授权在全国范围内实施非常严厉的封锁。尽管各州在资源、医疗保健能力和 COVID-19 病例发生率方面存在很大差异，但仍实施了这种一刀切的集中指令。我们认为，印度功能失调的联邦制是集中封锁的原因，阻碍了州和地方政府制定适合当地需求的政策应对措施。使用流动性数据，我们证明了不同州通过集中封锁限制流动性的巨大差异。我们发现，印度的集中封锁充其量只是在少数几个邦取得了部分成功，而即使在很少受到疫情影响的地区，也造成了巨大的经济成本。