Socioeconomic status and mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of 8 large Latin American cities

This study analyzes mobility patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic for 8 large Latin American cities. Indicators of mobility by socioeconomic status (SES) are generated by combining geo-referenced mobile phone information with granular census data. Before the pandemic, a strong positive association between SES and mobility is documented. With the arrival of the pandemic, in most cases, a negative association between mobility and SES emerges. This new pattern is explained by a notably stronger reduction in mobility by high SES individuals. A comparison of mobility for SES decile 1 vs decile 10 shows that, on average, the reduction is 75% larger in the case of decile 10. According to estimated lasso models, an indicator of government restrictions provides a parsimonious description of these heterogeneous responses. These estimations point to noticeable similarities in the patterns observed across the cities. We also explore how the median distance traveled changed for individuals that travel at least 1 km (the intensive margin). We find that the reduction in mobility in this indicator was larger for high-SES individuals compared to low-SES individuals in 6 out of 8 cities analyzed. The evidence is consistent with asymmetries in the feasibility of working from home and in the ability to smooth consumption under temporary income shocks. © 2022, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas A.C. All rights reserved.

Determinants of the evolution of the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Peru: Mobility, geography and economic development

This research seeks to contribute to the literature on the determinants of the evolution of the number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 in Peru;specifically, the role of mobility of people -understood as displacement-, geography, and economic development. To do this, we use random-effects Poisson regressions and data from four groups of variables at the district level: (1) COVID-19, (2) mobility of people, (3) geographic variables, and (4) socioeconomic variables. The main results indicate that the mobility of people has a negative relationship with the probability of accumulating cases and deaths of COVID-19 until the ninth week of the pandemic, but it has a positive relationship from the eleventh week. We also find that socioeconomic variables such as GDP per capita and life expectancy have positive associations with the probability of accumulating COVID-19 cases and deaths, while geographic variables such as height and slope of the territory have negative associations. The results also indicate that the role of geographic and socioeconomic variables depends on the inclusion of Lima in the empirical analysis.