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Back to Trend: COVID Effects on E-commerce in 47 Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Joel Alcedo
  • Alberto Cavallo
  • Bricklin Dwyer
  • Prachi Mishra
  • Antonio Spilimbergo

Abstract

We study E-commerce across 47 economies and 26 industries during the COVID-19 pandemic using online transaction data from Mastercard. The online share of total credit card transactions surged during the pandemic, especially as governments made transfers to households in lockdown. As the fiscal support and mobility restrictions waned, online shares went back to pre-pandemic trends in almost all countries. We find little evidence of long-lasting structural changes in E-commerce spending patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel Alcedo & Alberto Cavallo & Bricklin Dwyer & Prachi Mishra & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2022. "Back to Trend: COVID Effects on E-commerce in 47 Countries," NBER Working Papers 29729, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29729
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    1. Arthur Turrell & Bradley Speigner & Jyldyz Djumalieva & David Copple & James Thurgood, 2019. "Transforming Naturally Occurring Text Data into Economic Statistics: The Case of Online Job Vacancy Postings," NBER Chapters, in: Big Data for Twenty-First-Century Economic Statistics, pages 173-207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    6. Cavallo, Alberto, 2013. "Online and official price indexes: Measuring Argentina's inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 152-165.
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    Cited by:

    1. Joël Cariolle & Florian Léon, 2022. "How internet helped firms to cope with COVID-19," Working Papers hal-03592617, HAL.
    2. Axenbeck, Janna & Bertschek, Irene & Breithaupt, Patrick & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2023. "Firm digitalisation and mobility - Do Covid-19-related changes persist?," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-011, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Witold Chmielarz & Marek Zborowski & Xuetao Jin & Mesut Atasever & Justyna Szpakowska, 2022. "On a Comparative Analysis of Individual Customer Purchases on the Internet for Poland, Turkey and the People’s Republic of China at the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-21, June.
    4. Liviu Andrei Toader & Dorel Mihai Paraschiv & Florentina Chițu, 2023. "The Effects of Individuals’ Levels of Computer Skills on the ICT Sector Employment in the European Union during the COVID-19 Pandemics," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 26(85), pages 67-77, June.
    5. Kahr, Michael, 2022. "Determining locations and layouts for parcel lockers to support supply chain viability at the last mile," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    6. Mr. Francesco Grigoli & Evgenia Pugacheva, 2022. "Updating Inflation Weights in the UK and Germany during COVID-19," IMF Working Papers 2022/204, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Guo, Jianxin & Jin, Songqing & Zhao, Jichun & Wang, Hongbiao & Zhao, Fang, 2022. "Has COVID-19 accelerated the E-commerce of agricultural products? Evidence from sales data of E-stores in China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    8. Jean-Victor Alipour & Oliver Falck & Simon Krause & Carla Krolage & Sebastian Wichert, 2022. "Working from Home and Consumption in Cities," CESifo Working Paper Series 10000, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • F00 - International Economics - - General - - - General
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

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