Disputes between neighbors in Mexican cities during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

We estimate the effect of the COVID‐19 pandemic lockdown on disputes between neighbors using a panel of 70 cities from across Mexico and a difference‐in‐difference strategy. Our results show that the lockdown exacerbated disputes related to pets as nuisances by 45%, noise by 31%, unruly children by 23%, and garbage by 22%. We do not find any effect of the COVID‐19 lockdown on disputes related to gossip. We also estimate heterogeneous effects of the alcohol sales ban across Mexican municipalities. Our findings suggest that this public policy helped to reduce the likelihood of disputes related to noise and garbage.