Quantifying the Effect of Mobility-restricting Policy Stringency on Leisure Outings in the Greater Tokyo Area

We estimated the marginal effects of mobility-restricting policy stringency on leisure outings across the whole COVID-19 pandemic in the Greater Tokyo Area. Results suggest that a one-point increase in the policy stringency index resulted on average in a 0.34~0.55 percentage points reduction in the amount of leisure outings. In addition, the declaration of a State of Emergency had an additional effect on leisure outings of – 3.56 percentage points on average in Tokyo. No evidence was found supporting the hypothesis that the declaration of Quasi-State of Emergency had any effect on leisure outings.