Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17001
Authors: 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 aggregated and anonymized transaction-level data from Mastercard, scaled to represent total consumer spending. The share of online transactions in total consumption increased more in economies with higher pre-pandemic e-commerce shares, exacerbating the digital divide across economies. Overall, the latest data suggest that these spikes in online spending shares are dissipating at the aggregate level, though there is variation across industries. In particular, the share of online spending in professional services and recreation has fallen below its pre-pandemic trend, but we observe a longer-lasting shift to digital in retail and restaurants.
Keywords: COVID-19; Technological Change; Consumption; Digitalization; Ecommerce
JEL Codes: O3; E00; F00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| spikes in online spending shares dissipating (F62) | returning to baseline levels (C22) |
| higher precovid online shares (D16) | exacerbating digital divide across economies (F63) |
| higher precovid share of online transactions (L81) | greater increase in ecommerce during the pandemic (L81) |
| stricter lockdowns (P37) | higher online spending shares (L81) |
| increased fiscal support (E62) | higher online spending shares (L81) |