Authors:
William C. Wheaton
Department of Economics
MIT Center for Real Estate
Anne Kinsella Thompson
MIT Center for Real Estate
Abstract:
It has been 85 days since the first case of Covid-19 was detected in the US. Until most recently information on the spread of the disease was not available by geographic areas smaller than counties. In an earlier piece, we found a significant positive impact of county density on the daily progress of the disease in a dynamic model. Since then, static data on disease incidence at the municipal level (as of 4/15/20) has become available in a few states. We use Massachusetts data since it is a fully incorporated state. We find that municipalities with greater density and with a greater share of land use in commercial-industrial categories have a significantly higher per capita incidence of the disease. The quantitative impact of density is particularly large.
