Counties with one-standard-deviation more social connections to China or Italy have a 50% higher compliance with mobility restrictions like “shelter-in-place” policies.
Mobility restrictions play a crucial role in mitigating the spread of pandemics. As local governments may be limited in their capacity to monitor and enforce mobility restrictions, households must voluntarily comply with social distancing rules for them to be effective. We study how social connectedness, measured by Facebook connections around the world, affects the efficacy of mobility restrictions.
Our empirical results suggest the flow of information through social connections is an economically significant driver of social distancing. A one-standard-deviation increase in social connections with China and Italy – the first countries with major outbreaks of the virus – increases the effectiveness of mobility restrictions by around 50%. For our analysis, we use Facebook’s county-level Social Connectedness Index and geolocation data from mobile devices from SafeGraph, which aggregates and provides anonymous user mobility data for the purpose of COVID-19 research. The effect of social connections exists regardless of political orientation but are stronger for Republican counties, which on average appear to comply less with mobility restrictions. It is also stronger for counties with older and less educated populations. Groups at higher risk from COVID-19 comply with restrictions better and are less affected by social connections. Our findings are consistent with social networks contributing to households’ information acquisition about the pandemic.
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