Setting an example: Political leaders' cues and compliance with health policies in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico.

How do political leaders' cues affect citizen behavior regarding a new and complex issue? We address this question in the context of the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico, using electoral outcomes and municipal-level mobility data from Facebook's Movement Range Maps. In March 2020, Mexico's president downplayed constantly the severity of the coming health crisis by continuing his political rallies throughout the country and encouraging people to leave their homes. Using an event-study analysis, we find that, after the first press conference where his government declared mobility restrictions were not yet necessary, on March 13, citizens' geographic mobility in pro-government municipalities was higher than in cities where support for the president was less strong. Our results are robust to several specifications and definitions of political support. Moreover, we find evidence that our results are driven by cities with higher media penetration, which implies that they can be attributed to people's reactions to the president's cues rather than to systematic differences in the preferences of his supporters.

¿Cómo influyen las señales de los líderes políticos en la conducta de la ciudadanía frente a un asunto nuevo y complejo? Abordamos este tema en el contexto de los comienzos de la pandemia por Covid­19 en México, al usar resultados electorales y datos sobre la movilidad a nivel municipal tomados de los Mapas de Rangos de Movimientos de Facebook. En marzo de 2020, el presidente de México de manera continua restaba importancia a la severidad de la crisis sanitaria por venir, al seguir con sus mítines políticos por todo el país y al alentar al pueblo a salir de sus casas. Mediante un análisis de caso, descubrimos que, después de la primera conferencia de prensa donde su gobierno declaró que aún no hacían falta restricciones a la movilidad, el 13 de marzo, hubo más movilidad geográfica entre los ciudadanos en municipios a favor del gobierno que en ciudades donde el apoyo al presidente era menos fuerte. Nuestros resultados son robustos para varias especificaciones y definiciones que explican el apoyo político. Además, tenemos evidencia de que nuestros resultados se apoyan en ciudades con una mayor penetración mediática, por lo que las reacciones de la población pueden atribuirse más a las señales del presidente que a diferencias sistemáticas en las preferencias de sus partidarios.

COVID-19 lockdown and its latency in Northern Italy: seismic evidence and socio-economic interpretation.

The Italian Government has decreed a series of progressive restrictions to delay the COVID-19 pandemic diffusion in Italy since March 10, 2020, including limitation in individual mobility and the closure of social, cultural, economic and industrial activities. Here we show the lockdown effect in Northern Italy, the COVID-19 most affected area, as revealed by noise variation at seismic stations. The reaction to lockdown was slow and not homogeneous with spots of negligible noise reduction, especially in the first week. A fresh interpretation of seismic noise variations in terms of socio-economic indicators sheds new light on the lockdown efficacy pointing to the causes of such delay: the noise reduction is significant where non strategic activities prevails, while it is small or negligible where dense population and strategic activities are present. These results are crucial for the a posteriori interpretation of the pandemic diffusion and the efficacy of differently targeted political actions.