Working Paper: NBER ID: w29729
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 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.
Keywords: COVID-19; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Government Transfers; Lockdowns
JEL Codes: E2; F00; L81; O3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Government fiscal support (E62) | Online spending shares (L81) |
| Mobility restrictions (J62) | Online spending shares (L81) |
| Government fiscal support + Mobility restrictions (E63) | Online spending shares (L81) |
| Online spending shares (L81) | Reverted to pre-pandemic trends (P27) |