中文摘要
如果公民遵守社交距离并将其流动给他人造成的成本内部化,社交距离能够减缓COVID-19的传播。我们利用2020年1月至5月意大利各省人口流动数据,研究公民价值观如何调节这一过程。我们发现,病毒暴发后人口流动有所下降,而在公民资本较高的地区降幅显著更大,且这一效应在强制性全国封锁之前和之后均存在。该效应并非由传染风险、医疗能力、地理、社会经济与人口因素的差异,或笼统的南北分化所驱动。通过对以意大利情况校准的SIR模型进行模拟,我们估计,如果所有省份的公民资本都与最高四分位省份相同,与COVID相关的死亡将减少约60%。对于疫情发生率与流动限制较为温和的德国,我们得到了一致的结果。
Abstract
Social distancing can slow the spread of COVID-19 if citizens comply with it and internalize the cost of their mobility on others. We study how civic values mediate this process using data on mobility across Italian provinces between January and May 2020. We find that after the virus outbreak mobility declined, but significantly more in areas with higher civic capital, both before and after a mandatory national lockdown. The effect is not driven by differences in the risk of contagion, health-care capacity, geographic socioeconomic and demographic factors, or by a general North–South divide. Simulating a SIR model calibrated on Italy, we estimate that if all provinces had the same civic capital as those in top-quartile, COVID-related deaths would have been about 60% lower. We find consistent results for Germany where the incidence of the pandemic and restrictions to mobility were milder.