Combined (Manuscript + SI) for ‘Food Security and Human Mobility During the Covid-19 Lockdown’ Title: Food Security and Human Mobility During the COVID-19 Lockdown Authors: Prithwiraj Choudhury1*, Wesley W. Koo2*, Xina Li2, Nishant Kishore3, Satchit Balsari3, and Tarun Khanna1. Affiliations: 1Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Morgan Hall 497, Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163, USA. 2INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue, Singapore 138676, Singapore. 3Harvard University, Harvard School of Public Health, 651 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. *Corresponding authors: Prithwiraj Choudhury. Harvard Business School, Morgan Hall 497, Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163, USA. Email:
[email protected]. Wesley W. Koo. INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue, Singapore 138676, Singapore. Email:
[email protected]. The authors declare no competing interests. 1 Combined (Manuscript + SI) for ‘Food Security and Human Mobility During the Covid-19 Lockdown’ Abstract: During the COVID-19 crisis, millions of migrants around the world face food insecurity. This could force migrants to travel during the pandemic, exposing them to health risks and accelerating the spread of the virus. Anecdotal evidence demonstrates the importance of enforcing food security policies to tide the crisis. However, the effects of these policies on containing mobility during the crisis remain unknown. Using mobility data from Facebook, we demonstrate that a policy to guarantee food security that has attracted attention from the Supreme Court of India— portable ration cards—is related to lower mobility during India’s COVID-19 lockdown. Intra-state portable ration cards, which give migrants access to food when they move within their state, are associated with 12% lower intra-state mobility.