Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/264375 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
ADB Economics Working Paper Series No. 659
Publisher: 
Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila
Abstract: 
Throughout 2020, national and subnational governments worldwide implemented nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to contain the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). These included community quarantines, also known as lockdowns, of varying length, scope, and stringency that restricted mobility. To assess the effect of community quarantines on urban mobility in the Philippines, we analyze a new source of data: cellphone-based origin-destination flows made available by a major telecommunication company. First, we demonstrate the impulse responses of mobility to lockdowns of varying stringency levels over six months starting in March 2020. Then we assess the heterogeneous effects of lockdowns by city characteristics, focusing on employment composition. This analysis reveals that the effect of lockdowns was strongest in cities where a high share of workforce was employed in work-from-home-friendly sectors or medium to large enterprises. We compare our findings with cross-country evidence on lockdowns and mobility, discuss the economic implications for containment policies in the Philippines, and suggest additional research that can be based on this novel dataset.
Subjects: 
mobility
employment
lockdowns
nonpharmaceutical interventions
remote work
JEL: 
I18
J61
K32
O18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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