Understanding societal responses to policies undertaken during emergencies: Lessons from COVID-19's Second Wave in Maharashtra
Maharashtra, one of India’s wealthiest and most populous states, was among the worst hit by the second wave of COVID-19 in 2021. The state government was responsible for enacting emergency policies to curb the transmission and reduce the economic shock of the virus. This paper investigates the societal response to such restrictions using alternative data. It employs anonymized smartphone location data to furnish a sense of movement between state districts as well as satellite imagery to understand changes in industrial economic activity. Our analysis of this data shows how residents and industries reacted to rapidly changing directives enforced by the government. It also highlights the efficacy of utilising such high-frequency datasets to provide officials with the impact of policies made during an emergency. This paper finds that the mobility of people changed in anticipation of a policy, not when the policy itself was enforced whereas industrial activity required a one to two-week lag to react to policy changes.
- Overview of all steps undertaken oulined in 'notes_on_analyis.docx'.
- All other files uploaded are referenced and explained in 'notes_on_analyis.docx' as well.
Other members of the team: Sridhar Ganapathy (on data cleaning and analysis), Nikita Kwatre (on secondary research).
If you have any questions, please reach out to Harsh Vardhan Pachisia at: hvpachisia@gmail.com.