Economic and Social Consequences of Human Mobility Restrictions Under COVID-19

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, National governments have applied lockdown restrictions to reduce the infection rate.

We perform a massive analysis on near real-time Italian data provided by Facebook to investigate how lockdown strategies affect economic conditions of individuals and local governments. We model the change in mobility as an exogenous shock similar to a natural disaster. We identify two ways through which mobility restrictions affect Italian citizens. First, we find that the impact of lockdown is stronger in municipalities with higher fiscal capacity. Second, we find a segregation effect, since mobility restrictions are stronger in municipalities for which inequality is higher and where individuals have lower income per capita.

Keywords: mobility, network, inequality, income, segregation, COVID-19