Slums and PandemicsLuiz Brotherhood, Tiago Cavalcanti, Daniel Da Mata and Cezar Santos Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge Abstract: This paper studies the role of slums in shaping the economic and health dynamics of pandemics. Using data from millions of mobile phones in Brazil, an event-study analysis shows that residents of overcrowded slums engaged in less social distancing after the outbreak of Covid-19. We develop a choice-theoretic equilibrium model in which poorer agents live in high-density slums and others do not. The model is calibrated to Rio de Janeiro. Slum dwellers account for a disproportionately high number of infections and deaths. In a counterfactual scenario without slums, deaths increase in non-slum neighborhoods. Policy simulations indicate that: reallocating medical resources cuts deaths and raises output and the welfare of both groups; mild lockdowns favor slum individuals by mitigating the demand for hospital beds whereas strict confinements mostly delay the evolution of the pandemic; and cash transfers benefit slum residents in detriment of others, highlighting important distributional effects. Keywords: Covid-19; slums; health; social distancing; public policies (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:2076 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge |
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