This paper analyzes the impact of mobility contraction on employee furlough and excess deaths in Italy during the COVID-19 crisis. Our approach exploits rainfall patterns across Italian administrative regions as a source of exogenous variation in human mobility to pinpoint the causal effect of mobility restrictions on excess deaths and furlough workers. Results confirm that the first countrywide lockdown has effectively curtailed the COVID-19 epidemics restricting it mainly to the northern part of the country, with the drawback of a countrywide increase in unemployment risk. Our analysis points out that a mobility contraction of 1% leads to a mortality reduction of 0.6%, but it induces an increase of 10% in Wage Guarantee Funds allowed hours. We discuss return-to-work policies and prioritizing policies for administering COVID-19 vaccines in the most advanced stage of a vaccination campaign when the healthy active population is left to be vaccinated.

本文分析了 COVID-19 危机期间意大利流动性收缩对员工休假和超额死亡的影响。我们的方法利用意大利行政区域的降雨模式作为人员流动性外生变化的来源，以查明流动性限制对过多死亡和休假工人的因果影响。结果证实，首次全国范围内的封锁有效地遏制了 COVID-19 疫情，将其主要限制在该国北部地区，但缺点是全国范围内的失业风险增加。我们的分析指出，流动性收缩 1% 会导致死亡率降低 0.6%，但会导致工资保证基金允许的工时增加 10%。我们讨论了重返工作岗位的政策，以及在疫苗接种活动的最后阶段（当健康活跃人群留下来接种疫苗时）优先接种 COVID-19 疫苗的政策。