Mobility and Engagement Following the SARS-Cov-2 Outbreak

Tyler Atkinson (), Jim Dolmas (), Christoffer Koch, Evan Koenig, Karel Mertens, Anthony Murphy () and Kei-Mu Yi

No 2014, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Abstract: We develop a Mobility and Engagement Index (MEI) based on a range of mobility metrics from Safegraph geolocation data, and validate the index with mobility data from Google and Unacast. We construct MEIs at the county, MSA, state and nationwide level, and link these measures to indicators of economic activity. According to our measures, the bulk of sheltering-in-place and social disengagement occurred during the week of March 15 and simultaneously across the U.S. At the national peak of the decline in mobility in early April, localities that engaged in a 10% larger decrease in mobility than average saw an additional 0.6% of their populations claiming unemployment insurance, an additional 2.8 percentage point reduction in small businesses employment, an additional 2.6 percentage point increase in small business closures, and an additional 3.2 percentage point reduction in new-business applications. A gradual and broad-based resumption of mobility and engagement started in the third week of April.

Keywords: Social Distancing and Economic Activity; Location Data; COVID-19; Social Distancing Index; SARS-Cov-2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C15 E66 R11 R19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2020-05-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-ure
Note: June 2020: new title. A previous version of this paper was circulated under the title, Social Distancing Following the SARS-Cov-2 Outbreak.
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.dallasfed.org/-/media/documents/research/papers/2020/wp2014.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

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:fip:feddwp:88040

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

DOI: 10.24149/wp2014

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Amy Chapman ().