Mobility in times of pandemics: Evidence on the spread of COVID19 in Italy's labour market areas

Andrea Ascani, Alessandra Faggian, Sandro Montresor () and Alessandro Palma

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2021, vol. 58, issue C, 444-454

Abstract: We investigate the interplay between the local spread of COVID-19 and patterns of individual mobility within and across self-contained geographical areas. Conceptually, we connect the debate on regional development in the presence of shocks with the literature on spatial labour markets and address some research questions about the role of individual mobility in affecting the spread of the disease. By looking at granular flows of Facebook users moving within and across Italian labour market areas (LMAs), we analyse whether their heterogeneous internal and external mobility has had a significant impact on excess mortality. We also explore how individual mobility plays different roles in LMAs hosting industrial districts – characterised by a thicker local labour market and denser business and social interactions – and with a high presence of “essential sectors” - activities not affected by the COVID-19 containment measures taken by the Italian government at the onset of the crisis.

Keywords: Local market areas; Mobility; Facebook; COVID-19; Excess mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 I18 J61 R12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X21000795
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:streco:v:58:y:2021:i:c:p:444-454

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2021.06.016

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().