Containment measures, employment and the spread of COVID-19 in Spanish municipalities

• Gutiérrez, Eduardo ^[1] ; Moral-Benito, Enrique ^[1]
  1. [1] Banco de España
• Localización: Documentos ocasionales - Banco de España, ISSN 1696-2222, Nº. 22, 2020, págs. 1-20
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • In order to curb the advance of COVID-19, Royal Decree-Law 10/2020 of 29 March 2020 stipulated the temporary shutdown of all activities considered non-essential between 30 March and 9 April 2020. This paper uses municipal-level information to quantify the short-term effects of this measure both on employment and on containing the pandemic. Specifically, we analyse the relationship between the share of firms forced to shut down in each municipality and changes in Social Security registrations along with new COVID-19 cases in April. The results suggest that those municipalities most affected by the nonessential activity shutdown endured higher reductions in employment but, at the same time, they also witnessed a lower propagation of the pandemic during April. Finally, other characteristics such as ageing, colder temperatures, higher population density and proximity to the provincial capital are found to be associated with a higher incidence of COVID-19 at the municipality level.