The effect of lockdowns and infection rates on supermarket sales

• Published in: Economics and human biology 2021-01, Vol.40, p.100947-100947, Article 100947
• Main Authors: Vall Castelló, Judit, Lopez Casasnovas, Guillem
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Commerce - statistics & numerical data; Communicable Disease Control; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; Databases, Factual; Humans; Infections - epidemiology; Lockdown; Pandemics; SARS-CoV-2; Social Isolation; Spain - epidemiology; Supermarket sales; Supermarkets; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1570-677X; 1873-6130
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100947

•We document the evolution of the supermarket sales in Spain.•We distinguish between the impact of the lockdown from that of the number of COVID-19 cases.•Our results show strong stockpiling effects in the first week of the lockdown measures.•When we do the analysis by age group, we find no effects for individuals aged 66 and over. 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.