During the COVID-19 pandemic, national health authorities in many countries recommended that citizens wear masks and practice social distancing to stop the spread of the disease. But at the same time, a number of political leaders downplayed or contradicted such advice. In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the faculty's Professor Tiago Cavalcanti along with co-authors Nicolás Ajzenman and Daniel Da Mata showed that anti-scientific messaging in Brazil had a significant impact on how closely citizens followed COVID-19 guidelines.