Based on an analysis of infection data, The Economist sees two large zones that could emerge as bubbles, subsuming the smaller ones that are now being formed.
The phenomenon was first described in a pamphlet by economist William Forster Lloyd in 1833 in a discussion of the overgrazing of cattle on village common areas.
This migration to more prosperous places saps the Puerto Rican economy of potential, but it is precisely what economists think ought to happen when one region of a larger economy falls on hard times.