IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v40y2021ics1570677x20302173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of lockdowns and infection rates on supermarket sales

Author

Listed:
  • Vall Castelló, Judit
  • Lopez Casasnovas, Guillem

Abstract

In this paper we document the evolution of the supermarket sales in one of the European countries, Spain, that has been most hardly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a very detailed dataset at the weekly and municipality level on the sales of a supermarket chain, we are able to separately identify the effects on sales for 12 different food products and for three population age groups. Furthermore, we distinguish between the impact of the lockdown, which affected the entire territory by mid-March, from the effect of the number of new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases at the municipal level. Our results show strong stockpiling effects for most of the products in the first week of adoption of the lockdown measures. On the other hand, the number of new cases at the municipal level is associated with reductions in sales, pointing towards increased fears of being infected as the main driver of the slowdown in sales. Finally, when we do a separate analysis for different age groups, we find no effects for individuals aged 66 and over.

Suggested Citation

  • Vall Castelló, Judit & Lopez Casasnovas, Guillem, 2021. "The effect of lockdowns and infection rates on supermarket sales," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1570677x20302173
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100947
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X20302173
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100947?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott R Baker & Robert A Farrokhnia & Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel & Constantine Yannelis & Jeffrey Pontiff, 0. "How Does Household Spending Respond to an Epidemic? Consumption during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 834-862.
    2. Cummins, Steven & Berger, Nicolas & Cornelsen, Laura & Eling, Judith & Er, Vanessa & Greener, Robert & Kalbus, Alexandra & Karapici, Amanda & Law, Cherry & Ndlovu, Denise, 2020. "COVID-19: impact on the urban food retail system, diet and health inequalities in the UK," SocArXiv dwv2e, Center for Open Science.
    3. Tsutomu Watanabe, 2020. "The Responses of Consumption and Prices in Japan to the COVID-19 Crisis and the Tohoku Earthquake," Working Papers on Central Bank Communication 020, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    4. José González Mínguez & Alberto Urtasun & Miguel Pérez García de Mirasierra, 2020. "Evolución del consumo en España durante la vigencia del estado de alarma: un análisis a partir del gasto con tarjetas de pago," Boletín Económico, Banco de España, issue 3/2020.
    5. Hansen, Stephen & Carvalho, Vasco & García, Juan Ramón & Ortiz, Alvaro & Rodrigo, Tomasa & Rodríguez Mora, José V & Ruiz, Pep, 2020. "Tracking the COVID-19 Crisis with High-Resolution Transaction Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 14642, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Jill E. Hobbs, 2020. "Food supply chains during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 68(2), pages 171-176, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Braut, Beatrice & Migheli, Matteo & Truant, Elisa, 2022. "Food consumption changes during 2020 lockdown in Italy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 107-119.
    2. Zuokas, Danas & Gul, Evren & Lim, Alvin, 2022. "How did COVID-19 change what people buy: Evidence from a supermarket chain," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kubota, So & Onishi, Koichiro & Toyama, Yuta, 2021. "Consumption responses to COVID-19 payments: Evidence from a natural experiment and bank account data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1-17.
    2. Sebastian Doerr & Leonardo Gambacorta & José María Serena Garralda, 2021. "Big data and machine learning in central banking," BIS Working Papers 930, Bank for International Settlements.
    3. George, Ammu & Li, Changtai & Lim, Jing Zhi & Xie, Taojun, 2021. "From SARS to COVID-19: The evolving role of China-ASEAN production network," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. O’Connell, Martin & Smith, Kate & Stroud, Rebekah, 2022. "The dietary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    6. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & D'Imperio, Paolo & Felici, Francesco, 2022. "The fiscal response to the Italian COVID-19 crisis: A counterfactual analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    7. Bruno Carvalho & Susana Peralta & Joao Pereira dos Santos, 2020. "What and how did people buy during the Great Lockdown? Evidence from electronic payments," Working Papers ECARES 2020-20, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2021. "Changes in Consumption in the Early COVID-19 Era: Zip-Code Level Evidence from the U.S," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-10, October.
    9. Asger Lau Andersen & Emil Toft Hansen & Niels Johannesen & Adam Sheridan, 2020. "Pandemic, Shutdown and Consumer Spending: Lessons from Scandinavian Policy Responses to COVID-19," Papers 2005.04630, arXiv.org.
    10. Hodbod, Alexander & Hommes, Cars & Huber, Stefanie J. & Salle, Isabelle, 2021. "The COVID-19 consumption game-changer: Evidence from a large-scale multi-country survey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    11. David Bounie & Youssouf Camara & John Galbraith, 2020. "Consumers' Mobility, Expenditure and Online- Offline Substitution Response to COVID-19: Evidence from French Transaction Data," Working Papers hal-02566443, HAL.
    12. Sébastien Kraenzlin & Christoph Meyer & Thomas Nellen, 2020. "COVID-19 and regional shifts in Swiss retail payments," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 156(1), pages 1-20, December.
    13. Thiemo Fetzer, 2022. "Subsidising the spread of COVID-19: Evidence from the UK’S Eat-Out-to-Help-Out Scheme," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 1200-1217.
    14. Gonzalez-Pampillon, Nicolas & Nunez-Chaim, Gonzalo & Overman, Henry G., 2024. "The economic impacts of the UK's eat out to help out scheme," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    15. Jose Cuesta & Julieth Pico, 2020. "The Gendered Poverty Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Colombia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(5), pages 1558-1591, December.
    16. Atems, Bebonchu & Yimga, Jules, 2021. "Quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on US airline stock prices," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    17. Péter Elek & Anikó Bíró & Petra Fadgyas‐Freyler, 2021. "Income gradient of pharmaceutical panic buying at the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2312-2320, September.
    18. Bixuan Yang & Frank Asche & Tao Li, 2022. "Consumer behavior and food prices during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from Chinese cities," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1437-1460, July.
    19. Martin O'Connell & Áureo de Paula & Kate Smith, 2021. "Preparing for a pandemic: spending dynamics and panic buying during the COVID‐19 first wave," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 249-264, June.
    20. Rudsari, Saba & Fuqua, Donovan & Pimentel, Victor & Brewer, Barry, 2023. "Resilience and Recovery: Understanding the Underlying Drivers of Long-term Instability in Food Supply Chains," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 54(2), July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Supermarket sales; Lockdown;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:ehbiol:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1570677x20302173. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622964 .

    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.