Social Distancing, Internet Access and Inequality

Lesley Chiou and Catherine Tucker

No 26982, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper measures the role of the diffusion of high-speed Internet on an individual's ability to self-isolate during a global pandemic. We use data that tracks 20 million mobile devices and their movements across physical locations, and whether the mobile devices leave their homes that day. We show that while income is correlated with differences in the ability to stay at home, the unequal diffusion of high-speed Internet in homes across regions drives much of this observed income effect. We examine compliance with state-level directives to avoid leaving your home. Devices in regions with either high-income or high-speed Internet are less likely to leave their homes after such a directive. However, the combination of having both high income and high-speed Internet appears to be the biggest driver of propensity to stay at home. Our results suggest that the digital divide---or the fact that income and home Internet access are correlated---appears to explain much inequality we observe in people's ability to self-isolate.

JEL-codes: L96 L98 M15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict, nep-pay, nep-soc and nep-ure
Note: PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (107)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26982.pdf (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:nbr:nberwo:26982

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26982

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().