Bargain Olivier, Aminjonov Ulugbek
Bordeaux University and Institut Universitaire de France (France) and IZA (Germany).
Bordeaux University (France).
World Dev. 2021 Jun;142:105422. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105422. Epub 2021 Feb 16.
Since March 2020, governments have recommended or enacted lockdown policies to curb the spread of COVID-19. Yet, poorer segments of the population cannot afford to stay at home and must continue to work. In this paper, we test whether work-related mobility is effectively influenced by the local intensity of poverty. To do so, we exploit poverty data and Google mobility data for 242 regions of nine Latin American and African countries. We find that the drop in work-related mobility during the first lockdown period was indeed significantly lower in high-poverty regions compared to other regions. We also illustrate how higher poverty has induced a faster spread of the virus. The policy implication is that social protection measures in the form of food or cash trasfers must be complementary to physical distancing measures. Further research must evaluate how such transfers, when implemented, have attenuated the difference between poor and non-poor regions in terms of exposure to the virus.
自2020年3月以来，各国政府纷纷建议或实施封锁政策以遏制新冠病毒的传播。然而，贫困阶层无力居家，必须继续工作。在本文中，我们检验了与工作相关的流动性是否受到当地贫困程度的有效影响。为此，我们利用了九个拉丁美洲和非洲国家242个地区的贫困数据和谷歌流动性数据。我们发现，与其他地区相比，在第一次封锁期间，高贫困地区与工作相关的流动性下降幅度确实显著更低。我们还说明了更高的贫困程度是如何导致病毒更快传播的。政策含义是，以食品或现金转移形式的社会保护措施必须与物理距离措施相辅相成。进一步的研究必须评估这些转移措施在实施时如何缩小贫困地区和非贫困地区在接触病毒方面的差异。
