PropertyValue
?:abstract
  • Governments around the world have adopted unprecedented policies to deal with COVID-19. This paper zooms in on business shutdowns and investigates their effectiveness in reducing mortality. We leverage upon highly granular death registry data for over 4,000 Italian municipalities in a diff-in-diff approach that allows us to credibly mitigate endogeneity concerns. Our results, which are robust to controlling for a host of co-factors, offer strong evidence that business shutdowns are very effective in reducing mortality. We calculate that the death toll from the first wave of COVID-19 in Italy would have been twice as high in their absence. Our findings also highlight that timeliness is key: by acting one week earlier, the government could have reduced the death toll by an additional 25%. Finally, our estimates suggest that shutdowns should be targeted: closing shops, bars and restaurants saves the most lives, while shutting down manufacturing and construction activities has only mild effects.
is ?:annotates of
?:creator
?:doi
?:doi
  • 10.1101/2020.10.06.20207910
?:license
  • medrxiv
?:pdf_json_files
  • document_parses/pdf_json/9c5831b3ec5064166e4e8caa9bc118b84dafdd76.json
?:publication_isRelatedTo_Disease
?:sha_id
?:source
  • MedRxiv; WHO
?:title
  • Business Shutdowns and COVID-19 Mortality
?:type
?:year
  • 2020-10-07

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