This paper uses high-frequency nighttime lights data and a variety of empirical methods to analyze the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on economic activity during the period January 2020–March 2021 for a global sample of 2841 cities. Particular attention is paid to the role of a city's population density in shaping these impacts. While economic activity in cities is found to be negatively affected by both the spread of the virus and the imposition of nonpharmaceutical interventions, population density is found to amplify the negative impacts of the spread of the virus and attenuate those of nonpharmaceutical interventions. These results are driven by cities in low- and middle-income countries, where overall economic activity is found to have been more strongly hit by the pandemic and the strength of those impacts was stronger for less densely populated cities. The role of population density in shaping the economic impacts of the Covid-19 crisis across cities is confirmed by an event-study analysis. Taken together, the findings suggest that the Covid-19 crisis gave rise to divergent urban economic trajectories, both between high- and lower-income countries and between cities with different population densities in lower-income countries.

中文翻译：

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熄灯：Covid-19 对全球城市的经济影响

本文采用高频夜间灯光数据和多种实证方法，以全球 2841 个城市为样本，分析了 2020 年 1 月至 2021 年 3 月期间 Covid-19 危机对经济活动的影响。特别关注城市人口密度在形成这些影响中的作用。虽然发现城市的经济活动受到病毒传播和实施非药物干预措施的负面影响，但人口密度被发现会放大病毒传播的负面影响并减弱非药物干预措施的负面影响。这些结果是由低收入和中等收入国家的城市推动的，这些国家的整体经济活动受到大流行的打击更为严重，而人口密度较低的城市受到的影响更大。事件研究分析证实了人口密度在影响各城市 Covid-19 危机经济影响方面的作用。总而言之，研究结果表明，Covid-19 危机导致高收入和低收入国家之间以及低收入国家人口密度不同的城市之间出现不同的城市经济轨迹。