Does lockdown policy reduce human activity?

Souknilanh Keola and Kazunobu Hayakawa

No 800, IDE Discussion Papers from Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO)

Abstract: In this study, we empirically investigate how much human economic and social activity was decreased by the implementation of lockdown policy during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We measure the magnitude of human activity using nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. Our observations include daily NOx emissions in 173 countries between January 1 and July 31, 2020. Our findings can be summarized as follows. Lockdown policy significantly decreased NOx emissions in low-income countries during the policy as well as post-policy periods. In high-income countries, however, NOx emissions increased during both periods. It was also found that the absolute impact of the lockdown policy was larger during the post-policy period than during the policy period. While the stay-at-home policy reduced NOx emissions, we did not discover robust differences between regions in its effect.

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Nitrogen Oxide (NOx); Lockdown policy; Diseases (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 F53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in IDE Discussion Paper = IDE Discussion Paper, No. 800. 2020-09

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