28 PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS | VOL 41 | 2023 groups that were most likely to spread such content during the pandemic. Researchers also found that the spread of conspiratorial content was uncommon on Danish social media. A study examining over 9000 Danish tweets about COVID-19 and facemasks between February and November of 2020 found that only 5% of the tweets spread misinformation and that Danish tweets spreading misinformation were only slightly more common than tweets that rejected misinformation. Conspiratorial thinking seems to be very low in Denmark, and polling data show that most citizens neither believe conspiracy theories nor are anxious about their presence, which may be because of the high level of trust Danes have in their traditional news and media institutions (Bengtsson, 2021). Costs Unfortunately, Denmark’s highly supported COVID-19 containment policies were not without costs. The country faced significant declines in GDP. In 2020, during their first lockdown in the second quarter, GDP fell by as much as 6.7%. Then, in the first quarter of 2021, after the introduction of another set of containment measures, GDP declined again by 1.5% (Pedersen, 2021). The impact of Denmark’s lockdown policies was especially hard on workers in the informal economy. According to estimates from the World Bank, Denmark’s informal economy is responsible for upwards of 17% of their GDP, approximating $61B (Elgin et al., 2021). On top of the loss of income informal workers faced from lockdown policies, they were excluded from receiving the state’s financial aid packages, as tax payment was made a precondition for receiving aid, unlike in Sweden, where social welfare was distributed based on residence (Lind, 2020). This disregard for informal workers in relief packages seems inconsistent, given that many Danes have reported paying for under the table work (Rockwool Foundation, 2010). Schuessler and colleagues (2022) found that many Danes supported restrictive policies focused exclusively on the unvaccinated, such as the withholding of wages from public employees during obligatory isolation periods and lowering their priority during hospital bed shortages. Individuals who were most trusting of institutions like Parliament were actually more supportive of these restrictive policies compared to their less trusting counterparts. There is also evidence that Denmark’s discourse around the pandemic was one-sided, rather than pluralistic. Baekkeskov and colleagues (2021) researched the media discourse surrounding the government’s COVID-19 response policies for the period March 1 to April 4, 2020. Examining over 100 articles, they found that most of the discussions on policies like school closures and crowding limits were in favor of the government’s policies. This one-sided discourse extended to the government. These same researchers found that political leaders were uniform in their support for the nation’s policies on school closures and crowding limits, advocating for few to no alternative policies. They even found that recommendations from experts like those in the Public Health Agency were selectively applied, if applied at all, noting that government border closing policies and stay-at-home orders went beyond the recommendations of the Agency (Baekkeskov et al., 2021). Public Health Agency Director Søren Brostrøm even criticized the border closing policy publicly, calling it “a political decision with no scientific merits” (Mølgaard, 2020). Rather than bolster the scientific expertise of Director Brostrøm, voices of politicians like Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen were more prominently echoed by the media. Between January 8 and June 15 of 2020, Frederiksen was represented in four times as many articles than was Director Brostrøm (Baekkeskov et al., 2021). In sum, the discourse surrounding COVID-19 management policies coming from Denmark’s media and elected officials was one-sided. Narrow discourse of this kind can discourage the deliberation of better, alternative policies proposed by experts outside the government. Such discourse prevents citizens from being exposed to diverse and balanced perspectives regarding the government’s policies. It can also disempower citizens, by becoming a barrier for individuals to reason for themselves regarding whether certain governmental policies are appropriate (Fishkin, 2018; Neblo, 2015). Government compliance based on monotonous discourse of policy can be a sign of blind faith in institutions on the part of citizens, which can hinder the ability of citizens to engage in democratic deliberation. Recommendations for Denmark’s future If Denmark desires to be a model of egalitarianism for the world, it must expand its circle of trust to expatriates and immigrants. Without such a change, Denmark cannot be a model for other countries, as their unique source of trust may be based on their racial and cultural homogeneity and, therefore, cannot be extended to the vast and diverse world. Given that Danes have high levels of trust in their institutions and political leaders, such a shift is pos-
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