The “Great Lockdown”: Inactive workers and mortality by Covid‐19

In response to the Covid‐19 outbreak, the Italian Government imposed an economic lockdown on March 22, 2020, and ordered the closing of all non‐essential economic activities. This paper estimates the causal effects of this measure on mortality by Covid‐19 and on mobility patterns. The identification of the causal effects exploits the variation in the active population across municipalities induced by the economic lockdown. The difference‐in‐differences empirical design compares outcomes in municipalities above and below the median variation in the share of active population before and after the lockdown within a province, also controlling for municipality‐specific dynamics, daily shocks at the provincial level, and municipal unobserved characteristics. Our results show that the intensity of the economic lockdown is associated with a statistically significant reduction in mortality by Covid‐19 and, in particular, for age groups between 40 and 64 and older (with larger and more significant effects for individuals above 50). Back of the envelope calculations indicate that 4793 deaths were avoided, in the 26 days between April 5 and April 30, in the 3518 municipalities which experienced a more intense lockdown. Several robustness checks corroborate our empirical findings.