The Geography of COVID-19 in Sweden

Richard Florida () and Charlotta Mellander
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Richard Florida: University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and School of Cities

No 487, Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation from Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies

Abstract: This paper examines the geographic factors that are associated with the spread of COVID-19 in Sweden. The country is a useful case study to examine because it did not impose mandatory lockdowns, and thus we would expect the virus to spread in a more unimpeded way across communities. A growing body of research has examined the role of factors like density, household size, air connectivity, income, race and ethnicity, age, political affiliation, temperature and climate, and policy measure like lockdowns and physical distancing among others. The research examines the effects of some of these factors on the geographic variation of COVID-19 cases and on deaths, across both municipalities and neighborhoods. Our findings show that the geographic variation in COVID-19 is significantly but modestly associated with variables like density, population size, and the socio-economic characteristics of places, and somewhat more associated with variables for household size. What matters more is the presence of high-risk nursing homes and the onset of infections with places that were hit earlier by COVID-19 cases experiencing more severe outbreaks. Still, all these variables explain little of the geographic variation in COVID-19 across Sweden. There appears to be a high degree of randomness in the geographic variation of COVID-19 across Sweden and the degree to which some places were hit harder than others.

Keywords: COVID-19; Sweden; geography; density; connectivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J19 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2020-10-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-hea and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The geography of COVID-19 in Sweden (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0487

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