IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mar/magkse/202049.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumer Sentiment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Others' Beliefs

Author

Listed:
  • Dzung Bui

    (Philipps University Marburg)

  • Lena Draeger

    (Leibniz University of Hannover)

  • Bernd Hayo

    (Philipps University Marburg)

  • Giang NghiemŸ

    (Leibniz University of Hannover)

Abstract

This paper investigates the direct and indirect effects of others' beliefs on respondents' own beliefs and consumer sentiment. Conducting consumer surveys with randomized control trials (RCTs) in Thailand and Vietnam during the COVID-19 pandemic, we implement two information treatments. Both treatments contain cross-country information about others' beliefs about the appropriateness of the government's or the general public's reaction to the pandemic. The first treatment is asymmetric across our sample countries, as it shows opposite appropriateness ratings of the governments' reaction in Vietnam and Thailand, whereas the second treatment is rather symmetric. We find that the information treatments affect consumer sentiment only in Vietnam, where the sign of the effect suggests that the treatments are viewed as positive news. Moreover, consumer sentiment in Vietnam is strongly affected by both treatments when the information goes against respondents' prior beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • Dzung Bui & Lena Draeger & Bernd Hayo & Giang NghiemŸ, 2020. "Consumer Sentiment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Others' Beliefs," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202049, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    • Handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:202049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb02/research-groups/economics/macroeconomics/research/magks-joint-discussion-papers-in-economics/papers/2020-papers/49-2020_bui.pdf
    File Function: First 202049
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Giang, Long T., 2020. "Turning Vietnam’s COVID-19 Success into Economic Recovery: A Job-Focused Analysis of Individual Assessments on Their Finance and the Economy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 566, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Stephane Dees & Pedro Soares Brinca, 2013. "Consumer confidence as a predictor of consumption spending: Evidence for the United States and the Euro area," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 134, pages 1-14.
    3. 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.
    4. Carola Binder, 2020. "Coronavirus Fears and Macroeconomic Expectations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 721-730, October.
    5. Coibion, Olivier & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & van Rooij, Maarten, 2019. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3zh865pj, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    6. Jappelli, Tullio & Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Kenny, Geoff, 2020. "The Covid-19 Crisis and Consumption: Survey Evidence from Six EU Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 15525, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Carroll, Christopher D & Fuhrer, Jeffrey C & Wilcox, David W, 1994. "Does Consumer Sentiment Forecast Household Spending? If So, Why?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1397-1408, December.
    8. Asger Lau Andersen & Emil Toft Hansen & Niels Johannesen & Adam Sheridan, 2022. "Consumer responses to the COVID‐19 crisis: evidence from bank account transaction data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(4), pages 905-929, October.
    9. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.
    10. Lena Dräger & Giang Nghiem, 2021. "Are Consumers' Spending Decisions in Line with A Euler Equation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(3), pages 580-596, July.
    11. Duca-Radu, Ioana & Kenny, Geoff & Reuter, Andreas, 2021. "Inflation expectations, consumption and the lower bound: Micro evidence from a large multi-country survey," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 120-134.
    12. Thiemo Fetzer & Lukas Hensel & Johannes Hermle & Christopher Roth, 2021. "Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 968–978-9, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Alexander Coutts, 2019. "Good news and bad news are still news: experimental evidence on belief updating," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 369-395, June.
    15. repec:cii:cepiei:2013-q2-134-1 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Rüdiger Bachmann & Tim O. Berg & Eric R. Sims, 2015. "Inflation Expectations and Readiness to Spend: Cross-Sectional Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 1-35, February.
    17. Fetzer, Thiemo & Witte, Marc & Hensel, Lukas & Jachimowicz, Jon M. & Haushofer, Johannes & Ivchenko, Andriy & Caria, Stefano & Elena Reutskaja & Roth, Christopher & Fiorin, Stefano & Gomez, Margarita , 2020. "Global Behaviors and Perceptions at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 472, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    18. Bowman, David & Minehart, Deborah & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Loss aversion in a consumption-savings model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 155-178, February.
    19. Robert B. Barsky & Eric R. Sims, 2012. "Information, Animal Spirits, and the Meaning of Innovations in Consumer Confidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1343-1377, June.
    20. Hanspal, Tobin & Weber, Annika & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2020. "Exposure to the COVID-19 stock market crash and its effect on household expectations," SAFE Working Paper Series 279, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    21. Nathanael Vellekoop & Mirko Wiederholt, 2019. "Inflation Expectations and Choices of Households," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03878694, HAL.
    22. Tobin Hanspal & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "Exposure to the Covid-19 Stock Market Crash and its Effect on Household Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 8244, CESifo.
    23. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    24. David Eil & Justin M. Rao, 2011. "The Good News-Bad News Effect: Asymmetric Processing of Objective Information about Yourself," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 114-138, May.
    25. Souleles, Nicholas S, 2004. "Expectations, Heterogeneous Forecast Errors, and Consumption: Micro Evidence from the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Surveys," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(1), pages 39-72, February.
    26. Tobin Hanspal & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "Exposure to the COVID-19 Stock Market Crash and its Effect on Household Expectations," CEBI working paper series 20-13, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    27. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 109-152, July.
    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. Balcaen, Pieter & Buts, Caroline & Bois, Cind Du & Tkacheva, Olesya, 2023. "The effect of disinformation about COVID-19 on consumer confidence: Insights from a survey experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Buchheim, Lukas & Dovern, Jonas & Krolage, Carla & Link, Sebastian, 2022. "Sentiment and firm behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 186-198.
    3. Dzung Bui & Lena Draeger & Bernd Hayo & Giang Nghiem, 2021. "The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Households during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Emerging Economies," IMK Working Paper 211-2021, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    4. Bui, Dzung & Dräger, Lena & Hayo, Bernd & Nghiem, Giang, 2022. "The effects of fiscal policy on households during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Thailand and Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(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. Dräger, Lena & Bui, Dzung & Nghiem, Giang & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Consumer Sentiment During the COVID-19 Pandemic," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242375, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Bui, Dzung & Dräger, Lena & Hayo, Bernd & Nghiem, Giang, 2023. "Macroeconomic expectations and consumer sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of others’ beliefs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Tobin Hanspal & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "Exposure to the COVID-19 Stock Market Crash and its Effect on Household Expectations," CEBI working paper series 20-13, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    4. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    5. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    6. Hanspal, Tobin & Weber, Annika & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2020. "Exposure to the COVID-19 stock market crash and its effect on household expectations," SAFE Working Paper Series 279, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    7. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Long T. Giang & Minh N. N. Do, 2021. "Building on Vietnam’s Recent COVID-19 Success: A Job-Focused Analysis of Individual Assessments on Their Finance and the Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-21, September.
    8. Buchheim, Lukas & Dovern, Jonas & Krolage, Carla & Link, Sebastian, 2022. "Sentiment and firm behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 186-198.
    9. Christopher Roth & Sonja Settele & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 34-53, March.
    10. Horvath, Akos & Kay, Benjamin & Wix, Carlo, 2023. "The COVID-19 shock and consumer credit: Evidence from credit card data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kumar, Saten & Pedemonte, Mathieu, 2020. "Inflation expectations as a policy tool?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    12. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2023. "What matters in households’ inflation expectations?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 50-68.
    13. Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "The anchoring of long-term inflation expectations of consumers: insights from a new survey," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 96-116.
    14. Conrad, Christian & Enders, Zeno & Glas, Alexander, 2022. "The role of information and experience for households’ inflation expectations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    15. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Weber, Michael, 2020. "The Cost of the COVID-19 Crisis: Lockdowns, Macroeconomic Expectations, and Consumer Spending," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4jn1x65h, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    16. Goldfayn-Frank, Olga & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2020. "Expectation formation in a new environment: Evidence from the German reunification," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 301-320.
    17. Akos Horvath & Benjamin S. Kay & Carlo Wix, 2021. "The COVID-19 Shock and Consumer Credit: Evidence from Credit Card Data," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-008, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Gene Ambrocio, 2022. "Euro-area business confidence and COVID-19," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(43), pages 4915-4929, September.
    19. Dzung Bui & Lena Draeger & Bernd Hayo & Giang NghiemŸ, 2021. "The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Households during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Emerging Economies," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202120, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    20. Ritwik Banerjee & Priyama Majumdar, 2023. "Exponential growth bias in the prediction of COVID‐19 spread and economic expectation," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(358), pages 653-689, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer sentiment; COVID-19; randomized control trial (RCT); survey experiment; second-order beliefs; belief updating; government trust; macroeconomic expectations; Thailand; Vietnam;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mar:magkse:202049. 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: Bernd Hayo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vamarde.html .

    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.