Homogeneous societies usually provide more public goods. Voluntary social distancing in a pandemic is also a public good, but it has private benefits, too. Theoretically, we show that presence of population groups with different rationales for social distancing can lead to stricter observance of social distancing in more diverse societies. Empirically, we find that mobility reduction following the first local COVID-19 case was stronger in Russian cities with higher ethnic fractionalization and xenophobia. For identification, we predict the timing of the first case using historical patterns of internal migration. Using the United States data on mobility produces similar results.

同类社会通常会提供更多的公共物品。大流行中的自愿社会疏离也是一种公共利益，但它也有私人利益。从理论上讲，我们显示出具有不同社会隔离理由的人口群体的存在可以导致在更多不同的社会中更加严格地遵守社会隔离。根据经验，我们发现，在首批本地COVID-19病例之后，在种族分化程度较高和仇外心理较高的俄罗斯城市中，行动力下降更为明显。为了进行识别，我们使用内部迁移的历史模式来预测第一种情况的发生时间。使用美国的流动性数据可以得出类似的结果。