The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumption: Evidence from Weekly UnionPay Card Transaction Data in Shanghai

Abstract

The new coronavirus outbreak provides a genuinely exogenous unanticipated shock that enables this study to identify its impact on offline consumption, using unique weekly UnionPay card transaction data in 16 districts of 206 business circles in Shanghai, after China’s outbreak in late January 2020. Based on the difference-in-differences estimation strategy, this study finds that weekly offline consumption fell by 1.843 million RMB, and offline consumption frequency fell 447 times per business circle during the 20 subsequent weeks. It also finds a significant heterogeneity effect on different districts and categories, different times in a day of offline consumption spending in the post-COVID-19 pandemic window period, in which the government implemented different level policy responses for major public health emergencies. These findings suggest that offline consumption fell drastically after the unanticipated pandemic shock, which also means that policymakers need to be cautious in achieving a balance between economic recovery and epidemic prevention and control.