Understanding the heterogeneity of COVID-19 deaths and contagions: the role of air pollution and lockdown decisions

Leonardo Becchetti, Gianluigi Conzo, Pierluigi Conzo and Francesco Salustri

No 614, Carlo Alberto Notebooks from Collegio Carlo Alberto

Abstract: The uneven geographical distribution of the novel coronavirus epidemic (COVID-19) in Italy is a puzzle given the intense flow of movements among the different geographical areas before lockdown decisions. To shed light on it, we test the effect of the quality of air (as measured by particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide) and lockdown restrictions on daily adverse COVID-19 outcomes at province level. We find that air pollution is positively correlated with adverse outcomes of the epidemic, with lockdown being strongly significant and more effective in reducing deceases in more polluted areas. Results are robust to different methods including cross-section, pooled and fixed-effect panel regressions (controlling for spatial correlation), instrumental variable regressions, and difference-in differences estimates of lockdown decisions through predicted counterfactual trends. They are consistent with the consolidated body of literature in previous medical studies suggesting that poor quality of air creates chronic exposure to adverse outcomes from respiratory diseases. The estimated correlation does not change when accounting for other factors such as temperature, commuting flows, quality of regional health systems, share of public transport users, population density, the presence of Chinese community, and proxies for industry breakdown such as the share of small (artisan) firms. Our findings provide suggestions for investigating uneven geographical distribution patterns in other countries, and have implications for environmental and lockdown policies.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; particulate matter; lockdown; economic activity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H12 I18 J18 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: pages 53
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/no.614.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Understanding the Heterogeneity of Covid-19 Deaths and Contagions: The Role of Air Pollution and Lockdown Decisions (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cca:wpaper:614

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Carlo Alberto Notebooks from Collegio Carlo Alberto Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Giovanni Bert ().