On the Effects of COVID-19 Safer-At-Home Policies on Social Distancing, Car Crashes and Pollution

Abel Brodeur, Nikolai Cook and Taylor Wright

No 774, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: This paper investigates the impacts of COVID-19 safer-at-home polices on collisions and pollution. We find that statewide safer-at-home policies lead to a 20% reduction in vehicular collisions and that the effect is entirely driven by less severe collisions. For pollution, we find particulate matter concentration levels approximately 1.5µg/m3 lower during the period of a safer-at-home order, representing a 25% reduction. We document a similar reduction in air pollution following the implementation of similar policies in Europe. We calculate that as of the end of June 2020, the benefits from avoided car collisions in the U.S. were approximately $16 billion while the benefits from reduced air pollution could be as high as $13 billion.

Keywords: COVID-19; safer-at-home; lockdowns; air pollution; car crashes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P48 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/229181/1/GLO-DP-0774.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On the effects of COVID-19 safer-at-home policies on social distancing, car crashes and pollution (2021)
Working Paper: On the Effects of COVID-19 Safer-At-Home Policies on Social Distancing, Car Crashes and Pollution (2020)
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:zbw:glodps:774

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (econstor@zbw-workspace.eu).