Divided We Stay Home: Social Distancing and Ethnic Diversity

Maria Petrova, Ruben Enikolopov, Georgy Egorov and Alexey Makarin

No 14810, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Voluntary social distancing plays a vital role in containing the spread of the disease during a pandemic. As a public good, it should be more commonplace in more homogeneous and altruistic societies. However, for healthy people, observing social distancing has private benefits, too. If sick individuals are more likely to stay home, healthy ones have fewer incentives to do so, especially if the asymptomatic transmission is perceived to be unlikely. Theoretically, we show that this interplay may lead to a stricter observance of social distancing in more diverse and less altruistic societies. Empirically, we find that, consistent with the model, the reduction in mobility following the first local case of COVID-19 was stronger in Russian cities with higher ethnic fractionalization and cities with higher levels of xenophobia. For identification, we predict the timing of the first case using pre-existing patterns of internal migration to Moscow. Using SafeGraph data on mobility patterns, we confirm that mobility reduction in the United States was also higher in counties with higher ethnic fractionalization. Our findings highlight the importance of strategic incentives of different population groups for the effectiveness of public policy.

Keywords: Covid-19; Pandemic; Social distancing; Self-isolation; Quarantine; Fractionalization; Diversity; altruism; Xenophobia; Russia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 D74 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-hea and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14810 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Divided we stay home: Social distancing and ethnic diversity (2021)
Working Paper: Divided We Stay Home: Social Distancing and Ethnic Diversity (2020)
Working Paper: Divided We Stay Home: Social Distancing and Ethnic Diversity (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:cpr:ceprdp:14810

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14810

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().