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.

中文翻译：

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“大封锁”：Covid-19 的不活跃工人和死亡率

为应对 Covid-19 疫情，意大利政府于 2020 年 3 月 22 日实施了经济封锁，并下令关闭所有非必要的经济活动。本文估计了该措施对 Covid-19 死亡率和流动模式的因果影响。因果效应的识别利用了经济封锁引起的各城市活跃人口的变化。差异差异实证设计比较了一个省内封锁前后活跃人口份额变化中值以上和以下的城市的结果，同时控制了城市特定的动态、省级的每日冲击和市级未观察到的特征。我们的研究结果表明，经济封锁的强度与 Covid-19 死亡率的统计学显着降低有关，特别是对于 40 至 64 岁及以上的年龄组（对 50 岁以上的人的影响更大、更显着）。信封背面的计算表明，在 4 月 5 日至 4 月 30 日的 26 天里，在 3518 个经历了更严重封锁的城市中，避免了 4793 人死亡。几项稳健性检验证实了我们的实证研究结果。在经历了更严重的封锁的 3518 个城市中。几项稳健性检验证实了我们的实证研究结果。在经历了更严重的封锁的 3518 个城市中。几项稳健性检验证实了我们的实证研究结果。