How COVID-19 changed Italian consumers' behavior

Enrico Maria Cervellati, Gian Paolo Stella, Umberto Filotto and Andrea Maino

Global Finance Journal, 2022, vol. 51, issue C

Abstract: We investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected people's health-related choices and spending habits in Italy, the first European country to be heavily affected by the pandemic. We collected about 3000 questionnaires in May and June 2020 (that is, during the stabilization phase that followed the country's lockdown), asking questions taken from the “Survey tool and guidance: rapid, simple, flexible behavioural insights on COVID-19” issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), and correlated the responses with respondents' demographic and socioeconomic profiles. A principal component analysis (PCA) shows three main components that we label “Unusual behavior,” “Precautionary spending,” and “Augmented social distancing,” which vary with demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Keywords: Consumer behavior; Consumer spending; COVID-19; Health-related decisions; Socioeconomic variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D7 D9 E7 I1 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:glofin:v:51:y:2022:i:c:s1044028321000788

DOI: 10.1016/j.gfj.2021.100680

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