A special wave of the Financial Trust Index (FTI), which captures the level of trust that Americans have in institutions, shows a high level of compliance with the social-distance guidelines and the stay-at-home orders. The survey is administered by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
According to the special wave of the Booth/Kellogg Financial Trust Index, Americans have bought into social distancing rules. However, most of the respondents are unwilling to give up their privacy to allow a digital form of tracking because they don’t trust the federal government.
With the decline in the number of daily Covid-19-related deaths, the desire to reopen the economy and move to a Phase 2 in the policy response to the coronavirus is growing. In the absence of a readily-available vaccine or a winning cocktail of antiviral drugs, testing and tracking may be some of the best policy tools for a successful reopening of the economy.