Did Covid-19 hit harder in peripheral areas? The case of Italian municipalities.
Econ Hum Biol
; 42: 101018, 2021 08.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1240311
ABSTRACT
The first wave of Covid-19 pandemic had a geographically heterogeneous impact even within the most severely hit regions. Exploiting a triple-differences methodology, we find that in Italy Covid-19 hit relatively harder in peripheral areas the excess mortality in peripheral areas was almost double that of central ones in March 2020 (1.2 additional deaths every 1000 inhabitants). We leverage a rich dataset on Italian municipalities to explore mechanisms behind this gradient. We first show that socio-demographic and economic features at municipal level are highly collinear, making it hard to identify single-variable causal relationships. Using Principal Components Analysis we model excess mortality and show that areas with higher excess mortality have lower income, lower education, larger households, lower trade and higher industrial employments, and older population. Our findings highlight a strong centre-periphery gradient in the harshness of Covid-19, which we believe is also highly relevant from a policy-making standpoint.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Residence Characteristics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Econ Hum Biol
Journal subject:
Biology
/
Social Sciences
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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