JUE insight: How much does Covid-19 increase with mobility? Evidence from New York and four other US cities

Glaeser, Edward L.; Gorback, Caitlin; Redding, Stephen J.

doi:10.1016/j.jue.2020.103292

JUE insight: How much does Covid-19 increase with mobility? Evidence from New York and four other US cities

Edward L. Glaeser, Caitlin Gorback and Stephen J. Redding

How effective are restrictions on mobility in limiting COVID-19 spread? Using zip code data across five U.S. cities, we estimate that total cases per capita decrease by 19% for every ten percentage point fall in mobility. Addressing endogeneity concerns, we instrument for travel by residential teleworkable and essential shares and find a 25% decline in cases per capita. Using panel data for NYC with week and zip code fixed effects, we estimate a decline of 30%. We find substantial spatial and temporal heterogeneity; east coast cities have stronger effects, with the largest for NYC in the pandemic's early stages. ? 2020 Elsevier Inc.

1 January 2022

Journal of Urban Economics 2022

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2020.103292

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119020300632

This Journal article is published under the centre's Trade programme, Urban programme.