IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ssefpa/v12y2020i4d10.1007_s12571-020-01082-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of COVID-19 related ‘stay-at-home’ restrictions on food prices in Europe: findings from a preliminary analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Sonia Akter

    (National University of Singapore)

Abstract

This study examines the impact of COVID-19 related ‘stay-at-home’ restrictions on food prices in 31 European countries. I combine the European Union’s Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) with the Stay-at-Home Restriction Index (SHRI) from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) dataset for January–May 2020. The results of a series of difference-in-difference regression models reveal that the severity of stay-at-home restrictions increased overall food prices by 1% in March 2020, compared to January and February 2020. The price level for food continued to rise in the high stay-at-home restriction countries relative to thier counterpart in April but stabilised in May. The food categories that witnessed the most significant surges in prices were meat, fish & seafood, and vegetables. The prices of bread & cereals, fruits, milk, cheese & eggs and oils & fats were not significantly affected. The correlations between food prices and stay-at-home restrictions were significant after controlling for cross-country variations in COVID-19 affectedness and other mitigation and adaptation measures, such as international travel controls, road closures and the size of the economic stimulus packages. This study presents the first empirical evidence of food price inflation as an unintended consequence of COVID-19 pandemic containment measures in one of the most severely hit continents of the world.

Suggested Citation

  • Sonia Akter, 2020. "The impact of COVID-19 related ‘stay-at-home’ restrictions on food prices in Europe: findings from a preliminary analysis," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(4), pages 719-725, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:12:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s12571-020-01082-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s12571-020-01082-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-020-01082-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12571-020-01082-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kaspars Naglis-Liepa & Liga Paula & Lana Janmere & Dace Kaufmane & Liga Proskina, 2022. "Local Food Development Perspectives in Latvia: A Value-Oriented View," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-30, February.
    2. Kentaka Aruga, 2022. "Impact of the Number of Hours Spent at Home on the Volume of Municipal Waste Generated: Evidence from Tokyo during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-10, May.
    3. Rico Ihle & Ziv Bar‐Nahum & Oleg Nivievskyi & Ofir D. Rubin, 2022. "Russia’s invasion of Ukraine increased the synchronisation of global commodity prices," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 66(4), pages 775-796, October.
    4. Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Malina & Petrescu, Dacinia Crina & Todoran, Silviu Ciprian & Petrescu-Mag, Ioan Valentin, 2021. "Us and them. Is the COVID-19 pandemic a driver for xenophobia in land transactions in Romania?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    5. Li Wang & Xing-Lu Gao & Wei-Xing Zhou, 2023. "Testing for intrinsic multifractality in the global grain spot market indices: A multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis," Papers 2306.10496, arXiv.org.
    6. Daisy Recchia & Pascaline Rollet & Marlène Perignon & Nicolas Bricas & Simon Vonthron & Coline Perrin & Caroline Méjean, 2022. "Changes in food purchasing practices of French households during the first COVID-19 lockdown and associated individual and environmental factors," Post-Print hal-03638229, HAL.
    7. Amare, Mulubrhan & Abay, Kibrom A. & Tiberti, Luca & Chamberlin, Jordan, 2021. "COVID-19 and food security: Panel data evidence from Nigeria," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    8. Tarek Ben Hassen & Hamid El Bilali & Mohammad S. Allahyari & Darjan Karabašević & Adriana Radosavac & Sinisa Berjan & Željko Vaško & Pavle Radanov & Ibrahim Obhođaš, 2021. "Food Behavior Changes during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Statistical Analysis of Consumer Survey Data from Bosnia and Herzegovina," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-11, August.
    9. Gao, Xing-Lu & Shao, Ying-Hui & Yang, Yan-Hong & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "Do the global grain spot markets exhibit multifractal nature?," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    10. Ziang Zhang & Chao Liu & Robin Nunkoo & Vivek A. Sunnassee & Xiaoyan Chen, 2022. "Rethinking Lockdown Policies in the Pre-Vaccine Era of COVID-19: A Configurational Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-18, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:12:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s12571-020-01082-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.