The relationship between mobility and COVID-19 pandemic: Daily evidence from an emerging country by causality analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2021.100366Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • The study examines the econometric causality nexus between mobility and COVID-19 indicators.

  • The study focuses on Turkey an emerging country example.

  • The study uses daily data between March 11, 2020, and December 7, 2020.

  • There are causalities from some mobility indicators to the pandemic indicators.

  • The results prove the effects of mobility in terms of the pandemic.

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between mobility (a proxy for transport) and the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on Turkey as an example of an emerging country. In this context, eight types of mobility and two indicators of COVID-19 were analyzed using daily data from March 11, 2020 to December 7, 2020 by applying Toda-Yamamoto causality test. The findings revealed that (i) there is cointegration between the variables in the long term; (ii) there is an econometric causality between mobility indicators (mobility of grocery, park, residential, retail, and workplace) and pandemic indicators; (iii) various mobility indicators have an econometric causality with different pandemic indicators; (iv) neither driving mobility nor walking mobility has an econometric causality with the pandemic indicators whereas some of the other types of mobility, such as grocery, park, and retail do. These results generally show the effects of mobility and highlight the importance of appropriate mobility restrictions in terms of the pandemic.

Keywords

COVID-19 pandemic
Mobility
Toda-Yamamoto causality test
Turkey

JEL Codes

C22
I18
L91
N74
R49

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available in Apple Mobility Data at https://covid19.apple.com/mobility, Google Mobility Data at https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility, and Ministry of Health of Turkey at https://covid19.saglik.gov.tr.

Cited by (0)

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Tevfik KARTAL is a capital market professional. He received a Ph.D. degree in banking from Marmara University, İstanbul/Turkey in 2017, and received an Associate Professor degree in banking from Inter-Universities Board, Ankara/Turkey in 2020. His research interest focuses mainly on banking, central banking, economics, finance, capital markets, financial institutions, financial markets, and financial legislations. He has authored 1 book, 2 book reviews, 20 book chapters, 59 articles, and 12 proceedings in Turkish and English, some of which are indexed in SSCI, SCOPUS, and ESCI indices. Besides, his 4 articles have been accepted for publication and 13 articles have been under review. Also, he works on various articles related to CDS spreads, commodities, FX rates, interest rates, NPL, and stock market index currently. Moreover, he has a referee role in 53 national and international journals indexed in SSCI, SCOPUS, and ESCI as well.

Dr. Özer DEPREN has been working as an Analysis and Decision Support Manager at Yapı Kredi Bank in İstanbul/Turkey for 10 years. He received the Ph.D. degree in Statistics from Marmara University, İstanbul/Turkey, 2014. His areas of interest are the Entropy, Performance Measuring Systems, Customer Experience Analytics, Advance Statistical Models, and Machine Learning Algorithms. Dr. Depren has more than 20 national/international publications in different journals indexed in SSCI, SCOPUS, and ESCI as well, and has authored 1 book chapter.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Serpil KILIÇ DEPREN works at Yıldız Technical University (YTU) Statistics Department, İstanbul/Turkey. She received the Ph.D. degree in Statistics from Marmara University in 2012. Her areas of interest include Hierarchical Linear Models, Generalized Estimation Equations, Mixed Models, Machine Learning Algorithms, Entropy, Data Analysis, and Multivariate Statistical Methods. Dr. Kılıç Depren has 36 international and 7 national publications in different journals indexed in SSCI, SCOPUS, and ESCI and has authored 1 book and 3 book chapter. Additionally, she has participated in 20 proceedings in international conferences and 4 proceedings in national conferences; as well, she won 7 academic awards from TUBITAK and YTU.