IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/apk/doctra/2205.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions in Costa Rica: a Local Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Pablo Barquero-Romero

    (Department of Economic Research, Central Bank of Costa Rica)

  • Esteban Méndez-Chacón

    (Department of Economic Research, Central Bank of Costa Rica)

  • Carlos Segura-Rodriguez

    (Department of Economic Research, Central Bank of Costa Rica)

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have implemented restrictive measures to impede mobility, aiming to reduce the number of infections and deaths caused by the disease. However, these measures harm economic activity. This study uses municipality variation in the restrictions that the government has implemented in Costa Rica to measure the effects of these restrictions on economic activity and health outcomes. We collect data on the sanitary alerts and restrictions announced by the government from March 15th, 2020 to July 31st, 2021, and use electricity consumption to approximate economic activity. We estimate that imposing a more restrictive sanitary alert reduces the weekly growth rate number of cases by 7% and of deaths by 10%, but it reduces commercial electricity consumption by 1.5%, which we associate with a decrease in economic activity of about 1.88%. ***Resumen: Durante la pandemia de COVID-19, los gobiernos implementaron medidas para restringir la movilidad de las personas, esto con el objetivo de reducir el número de infecciones y muertes causadas por la enfermedad. Sin embargo, estas medidas también perjudicaron la actividad económica. Para aproximar el efecto que estas restricciones tuvieron sobre la actividad económica y la salud de la población, este estudio utiliza los cambios en las restricciones que implementó el gobierno de Costa Rica por municipio (cantón). Se recopilaron datos sobre las alertas y restricciones sanitarias anunciadas por el gobierno del 15 de marzo de 2020 al 31 de julio de 2021, y se utilizó el consumo de electricidad para aproximar la actividad económica. Los resultados de las estimaciones muestran que imponer una alerta sanitaria más restrictiva redujo la tasa de crecimiento semanal de casos de COVID-19 en un 7 % y las muertes en un 10 %; sin embargo, también redujo el consumo eléctrico comercial en un 1,5 %, lo que se puede asociar con una disminución en el nivel de la actividad económica de alrededor 1,88 %

Suggested Citation

  • Jose Pablo Barquero-Romero & Esteban Méndez-Chacón & Carlos Segura-Rodriguez, 2022. "Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions in Costa Rica: a Local Approach," Documentos de Trabajo 2205, Banco Central de Costa Rica.
    • Handle: RePEc:apk:doctra:2205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorioinvestigaciones.bccr.fi.cr/handle/20.500.12506/368
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fang, Hanming & Wang, Long & Yang, Yang, 2020. "Human mobility restrictions and the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Eduardo Amaral Haddad & Fernando Salgueiro Perobelli & Inácio Fernandes Araújo, 2020. "Input-Output Analysis of COVID-19: Methodology for Assessing the Impacts of Lockdown Measures," TD NEREUS 1-2020, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    3. Beyer, Robert C.M. & Franco-Bedoya, Sebastian & Galdo, Virgilio, 2021. "Examining the economic impact of COVID-19 in India through daily electricity consumption and nighttime light intensity," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Chernozhukov, Victor & Kasahara, Hiroyuki & Schrimpf, Paul, 2021. "Causal impact of masks, policies, behavior on early covid-19 pandemic in the U.S," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 23-62.
    5. Umar, Zaghum & Gubareva, Mariya & Teplova, Tamara, 2021. "The impact of Covid-19 on commodity markets volatility: Analyzing time-frequency relations between commodity prices and coronavirus panic levels," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    6. Michele Vespe & Umberto Minora & Stefano Maria Iacus & Spyridon Spyratos & Francesco Sermi & Matteo Fontana & Biagio Ciuffo & Panayotis Christidis, 2021. "Mobility and Economic Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions in Italy using Mobile Network Operator Data," Papers 2106.00460, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Checo Ariadne & Grigoli Francesco & Mota Jose M., 2022. "Assessing Targeted Containment Policies to Fight COVID-19," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 159-196, January.
    2. Andrew G. Atkeson & Karen A. Kopecky & Tao Zha, 2024. "Four Stylized Facts About Covid‐19," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(1), pages 3-42, February.
    3. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "From the lockdown to the new normal: individual mobility and local labor market characteristics following the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1517-1550, October.
    4. Feng Wang & Xing Ge & Danwen Huang, 2022. "Government Intervention, Human Mobility, and COVID-19: A Causal Pathway Analysis from 121 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-26, March.
    5. Crudu, Federico & Di Stefano, Roberta & Mellace, Giovanni & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2024. "The gray zone: How not imposing a strict lockdown at the beginning of a pandemic can cost many lives," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Kawaguchi, Kohei & Kodama, Naomi & Tanaka, Mari, 2021. "Small business under the COVID-19 crisis: Expected short- and medium-run effects of anti-contagion and economic policies," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    7. Bisin, Alberto & Moro, Andrea, 2022. "JUE insight: Learning epidemiology by doing: The empirical implications of a Spatial-SIR model with behavioral responses," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    8. Goolsbee, Austan & Syverson, Chad, 2021. "Fear, lockdown, and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    9. Berta, P. & Bratti, M. & Fiorio, C.V. & Pisoni, E. & Verzillo, S., 2021. "Administrative border effects in Covid-19 related mortality," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 21/21, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Fezzi, Carlo & Fanghella, Valeria, 2021. "Tracking GDP in real-time using electricity market data: Insights from the first wave of COVID-19 across Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    11. Difang Huang & Ying Liang & Boyao Wu & Yanyi Ye, 2024. "Estimating the Impact of Social Distance Policy in Mitigating COVID-19 Spread with Factor-Based Imputation Approach," Papers 2405.12180, arXiv.org.
    12. Carlos B. Carneiro & I'uri H. Ferreira & Marcelo C. Medeiros & Henrique F. Pires & Eduardo Zilberman, 2020. "Lockdown effects in US states: an artificial counterfactual approach," Papers 2009.13484, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    13. Fang, Da & Guo, Yan, 2022. "Flow of goods to the shock of COVID-19 and toll-free highway policy: Evidence from logistics data in China," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    14. Bibhuti Sarker, 2025. "Factors affecting firm‐level job cuts during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A cross‐country evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 1873-1892, April.
    15. Ichino, Andrea & Favero, Carlo A. & Rustichini, Aldo, 2020. "Restarting the economy while saving lives under Covid-19," CEPR Discussion Papers 14664, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Brodeur, Abel & Clark, Andrew E. & Fleche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "COVID-19, lockdowns and well-being: Evidence from Google Trends," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    17. Juncal Cunado & David Gabauer & Rangan Gupta, 2024. "Realized volatility spillovers between energy and metal markets: a time-varying connectedness approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    18. Krista M. Milich & Natalie Fisher & Gisela Sobral, 2024. "Effective public health messaging for university students: lessons learned to increase adherence to safety guidelines during a pandemic," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    19. Kahanec, Martin & Lafférs, Lukáš & Schmidpeter, Bernhard, 2021. "The Impact of Mass Antigen Testing for COVID-19 on the Prevalence of the Disease," GLO Discussion Paper Series 775, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Lou, Jiehong & Shen, Xingchi & Niemeier, Deb, 2020. "Are stay-at-home orders more difficult to follow for low-income groups?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:apk:doctra:2205. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Departamento de Investigación Económica (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bccrrcr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.