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Does providing free internet access to low‐income households affect COVID‐19 spread?
Author(s) -
Goetz Daniel
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.4601
Subject(s) - recreation , business , covid-19 , the internet , affect (linguistics) , entertainment , internet access , apartment , marginal propensity to consume , demographic economics , internet privacy , public economics , finance , economics , medicine , psychology , computer science , art , law , pathology , world wide web , engineering , visual arts , civil engineering , communication , political science , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , virology , outbreak , market liquidity
This paper evaluates whether a policy of providing free, in‐home Internet for lower‐income households can reduce COVID‐19 case rates among those households. Using data from a pilot program in Toronto, we find that deploying free public WiFi in large apartment blocks within a low‐income neighborhood leads to a 14.4% reduction in weekly cases in that neighborhood. Having in‐home WiFi reduces the propensity of residents to visit businesses in the arts, entertainment, and recreation category, suggesting that WiFi benefits residents by providing in‐home substitutes for leisure activities.