How Does Household Spending Respond to an Epidemic? Consumption during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Utilizing transaction-level financial data, we explore how household consumption responded to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As case numbers grew and cities and states enacted shelter-in-place orders, Americans began to radically alter their typical spending across a number of major categories. In the first half of March 2020, individuals increased total spending by over 40% across a wide range of categories. This was followed by a decrease in overall spending of 25%–30% during the second half of March coinciding with the disease spreading, with only food delivery and grocery spending as major exceptions to the decline. Spending responded most strongly in states with active shelter-in-place orders, though individuals in all states had sizable responses. We find few differences across individuals with differing political beliefs, but households with children or low levels of liquidity saw the largest declines in spending during the latter part of March.

Human mobility trends during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

“…Historically, the year 2020 will be remembered for the global battle against an invisible enemy. Since the emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID- 19) in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the world is experiencing unprecedented phenomena [1]. In March of this year, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), and emergency measures have been internationally implemented as the outbreak continues to threaten public health.…”

“…One recent study captures the dissemination of COVID-19 information in relation to the outbreak progression from medical-oriented social media sources [17]. Other studies employing data-driven methodologies have also been introduced to estimate the negative impacts on various sectors such as the economy, public health, and human mobility [18][19][20][21][22][23]. In particular, mobility data have been identified as being especially relevant, and researchers have provided in-depth knowledge on how to leverage mobile device location data for analyzing propagation [24][25][26].…”

Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Household Food Waste Behavior in Japan

“…For example, the way people purchase and consume food has changed, with some consumers even resorting to panic buying to mitigate the risk of future shortages [22]. Consumers in the United States increased stockpiles of home goods, such as food, during COVID-19 [23]. However, an absence of panic buying and food stockpiling has been reported in Qatar [24].…”

Consumption and geographic mobility in pandemic times. Evidence from Mexico

“…Indeed, there are recent articles that make use of such information. In the United States, Baker et al ( 2020 ) use de-identified non-random data from a Fintech company at the transaction and individual level. They find a spike in total spending when cases begin to increase (late February and early March) but a subsequent decrease of close to 50 percent with respect to January and early February.…”